Kapitano Has Sex

I've had some lousy shags in my time, and I've been in some absurd situations. And oddly enough the two tend to coincide.

Last night I logged onto a certain friendship/dating/shagging site I sometimes use, just to check email. And found myself chatting on IM with a local guy who'd liked my profile and wanted to "meet up". I saved the conversation so here's a few highlights of his chatup technique:

  • "hey buddy how you doing. i LOVe sucking on big balls."

  • "i would love to have you cum in me or my mouth. just have you work my nipples while i suck you off"

  • "you let yourself in and i can suck you off no strings cum in my mouth and go"

  • "i love to suck a guy off and work tits""

  • "love big balls to suck


    • Clear, direct, no BS - what more could you want from meaningless sex? He's a great felateur, I'm lazy, he's desperate, I'm desperate too easygoing.

    He wanted me to drive out there and then, I said I didn't have a car, he said he'd pay for a taxi, I said thanks but I was tired so could we do it tomorrow...he said okay.

    So the next day (today) we exchange a series of text messages to the repeated effect of...

    Him: You coming today?
    Me: Sounds good. What's a good time for you, and by the way where exactly do you live?
    Him: Anytime.

    Him: When are you coming?
    Me: Is 7pm okay? Where are you?
    Him: Anytime is good.

    Him: You going to come today?
    Me: Be there at 7 - as soon as I know where to be.
    Him: Great.


    Eventually I got him to tell me where his home was - he sent the postcode, and I got the street from Google Maps. A few more texts, and I had the house number too. It was ten miles away - thirty minutes by car, or three hours on foot.

    I called a taxi, texted to say I was on my way, and got the response "OMG your in a taxi?! Don't u have a car? I only want suck n go!". Sigh.

    The taxi driver was a helpful, friendly Indian guy - who didn't know the area we were going to. I'd brought along a map, and he navigated with it perched on the steering wheel. Eventually, between us we figured out how to work his swanky new GPS gadget too.

    Meanwhile, every five minutes or less my partner in erotic rondezvous texted to ask me where I was and what I was doing...and whether I'd got the last text asking me. He also had the brainwave of kneeling blindfolded with mouth open on the floor, waiting for me to silently arrive. Um, okay.

    I was just starting to get a bad feeling about the whole thing, when the driver found the street...and charged me 175% of the estimated fare. And offered to stick around with the engine running and the meter ticking in case I found we'd come to the wrong place. I politely declined.

    I found the house, went in, and had sex with the big red faced man in front of the television. The whole thing lasted less than five minutes before he looked up and said in a squeaky, apologetic voice, "I'm gonna cum". And proceeded to do so.

    He'd completely forgotten his promise to reimburse my fare, in any case had no cash, and wanted to me to leave as quickly as possible. He didn't even want to shake hands.

    So, unwilling to spend another GBP20, I started walking home - consoling myself with a box of overcooked chips from a kebab shop. There was a bus stop, with a timetable announcing that I'd just missed the last daytime bus, and the night service would start in an hour - and end two hours after that.

    After ninety minutes trudging I did catch a bus to save my aching feet.

    So there you have it. My sexual appetite not so much quenched as squashed. And another answer to the eternal question, "What could possibly go wrong?"
    - 6/06/2009 11:39:00 pm 5 comments

    Facepalm Friday (29/05/09)

    Welcome to a new feature on Le Blogge Kapitaneau, one which may or may not last beyond the first installment: Facepalm Friday.

    This is simply where I post five of the stupidest things I've read on the net recently. Conspiracy nuts, psychocons, hatepreachers, famous people inadvisedly sounding off, and ordinary dumb folk with extraordinarily dumb opinions.
    1) Why do politicians think a small amount of power turns them into experts? Why do pop stars think a hit single turns them into opinion formers? And why do sports commentators get addicted to the microphone?

    David Icke tried to save the planet from pollution - before trying to save it from shapeshifting alien lizards. Keith Olbermann was the voice of baseball for years, before becoming the voice of outraged liberals, sir. And Reggie White thought bobbing and weaving was the way to score a goal off the field.

    "I'm offended that homosexuals will say that homosexuals deserve rights. Any man in America deserves rights, but homosexuals are trying to compare their plight with the plight of black men or black people. In the process of history, homosexuals have never been castrated, millions of them never died. Homosexuality is a decision."
    - Reggie White (Footballer and Commentator)

    2) Movie critics have the same delusion.

    "Hollywood has declared war on America...This is the only way the terrorists know they can win. This is the only way Hollywood knows America can lose. And so they have joined forces."
    "Dirty Harry" (Film reviewer)

    3) There are those who reject evolutionary theory without understanding it, but there are also those who accept it without understanding it.

    "Men are naturally more altruistic than women, period! It's evolutionary."
    - UnderseaCaveman (on youtube)

    4) Glurge! Bigotry makes you sick. So they coat it with so much sugar they think you won't notice. But that much sugar makes you sick anyway.

    "A little boy asked his mother, "Why are you crying?"

    "Because I'm a woman," she told him.

    "I don't understand," he said.

    His Mom just hugged him and said, "And you never will.""

    - Inspiring story on PositiveThoughts.com, about "Why Do Women Cry?"

    5) Glenn Beck wants us to know what he thinks - about everything. He does standup comedy, shockjock radio, shockjock TV, interviews, columns and books, just so we can know all his opinions. So it's no surprise the nonstop twitterer is on Twitter too.

    "I like fish"

    "I’ve been thinking about it more, so I wanted to clarify. I don’t LOVE fish, I just like it."

    "we're all going to die. Soon."
    - Glenn Beck on Twitter

    Facepalm!


    - 5/29/2009 05:30:00 am 3 comments

    100 Things about Kapitano, Part 5: Things I Like, but Shouldn't

    21) Crappy Sci-Fi Serials

    Earth: Final Conflict. Most shows have a shaky first season, then get better, then get stale and cancelled. This one started off smart, intriguing and even believable...then got a new lead, new writers, and new budget for the second season, and became the biggest pile of aimless dren ever to lose its entire fanbase.

    Enterprise. Trekkies are a loyal bunch, but even they (we, cough) gave up on this one. A thuggish captain leading a forgettable crew through a galaxy composed entirely of hostile, fanatical foreigners alien species.

    Even when it tried to be intelligent and right on - with the deeply hamfisted AIDS allegory - it shot itself royally in the foot by portraying metaphorical AIDS victims as metaphorical gay sex fiends who brought it upon themselves.

    Andromeda. Imagine Firefly, and subtract everything that made Firefly worth watching. The same cast of strong leader (Hunt/Malcom), kickboxing pseudo-girlfriend (Rommie/Zoe), psychopathic strongman (Tyr/Jayne), wimpy geek (Haper/Hoban) and mysterious outsider (Trance/Book), but with no clear plot, no deep characterisation, dialogue that only thinks it's smart and snappy and the the same politics of liberal imperialism that blight nearly all TV sci-fi from Buck Rogers to Babylon 5.


    22) Cheesy pseudo-cyberpunk synthpop bands

    S.P.O.C.K sing about Star Trek. They've got titles like "Mr Spock's Brain", "Charlie X" and "Never Trust a Klingon", which features lyrics like:

    "With their cloaking device they remain invisible
    until the time has come
    To appear right ahead of us
    and obliterate everyone"


    23) "Straight" men.

    Men who are completely and utterly heterosexual...but have gay sex because "My girlfriend doesn't understand me" or "I just want to try it for a laugh". Men who feel it's really important to tell you they're thinking about women while you twist their nipples. Men who's idea of plausible deniability is the sexual equivalent of "The dog ate my homework".

    Men who are not supposed to say things like this;

  • "I thought we could try a sixty nine."
  • In response to "Do you want me to suck your cock instead?" - "No thanks, I'm good here."
  • "Do you want to fuck my mouth?"
  • "That's good. Harder."
  • "Wank hard. It turns me on."


    • 24) Incredibly Stupid People on the Internet

    This fellow reckons he's got a cure for all psychiatric disorders, that also eliminates "birth trauma" and resets dislocated joints. And it is...to slap someone's head so hard they lose consciousness.

    Schemefighter is a youtube poster with a political theory. See if you can figure out what it is from these quotes.

  • "You fascist liberals are in cahoots with big business like Webster dictionary."
  • "You fascist liberals fought against civil rights."
  • "The Liberals used terrorism, such as firebombing, slashing tires, death threats, like they did against the soldiers at Berkeley, or to try to steal elections, or to advance their big Brother global warming tax agenda."
  • "Bush is a watered down conservative, McCain even more so."
  • "You fascist liberals are cleverly disguised anti-Semites."
  • "You fascist liberals are neo-Nazis."


    • 25) Porn with Faintly Disturbing Titles

    Straight porn tend to be, well, straight to the point.

  • She's Got Big Boobs
  • Psycho Bitches from Hell
  • This Ain't the Partridge Family
  • Scent of Mom
  • Phatty Girls
  • I Fucked my Daughter's Best Friend 3
  • Lesbian Psycho Roommates
  • Revenge of a Motorcycle Mama
  • Anal Apocalypse
  • Mixed Meat Sandwich
  • Annie Sprinkle the Original Squirter
  • I Spit on Your Corpse
  • Super Slurpy
  • Girls Who Love Big White Cocks 3
  • Captain Lust and the Pirate Woman
  • Wadds of Johnny
  • Soft Places
  • English Spanking Classic (Vol 29)


    • Gay stuff is slightly wittier:

  • Money For Nuttin'
  • Go Fuck Yourself
  • Anal Abyss
  • Pissing Around
  • Piss Police
  • My Dad Loves Black Cock (Vol 3)
  • Monsterballs
  • Breed My Raw Hole
  • Sucking Freakin' Huge Monster Cocks
  • Bro-Mancing the Bone
  • The Gay Team
  • Chateau d'Lust


    • But titlewise, bi is best:

  • Blow Bi Blow
  • Wanna Fuck My Wife Gotta Fuck Me Too
  • Bi Pole Her (vol 4)
  • Best Bi Far
  • Down Bi Law
  • Bi Bi Love 2
  • Fine Bi Me 2
  • Bi N Sell
  • Bi Accident 3
  • Bi Racial
  • Good Bi Lover
  • Bi The Way 3
  • Bi Bi American Pie (vol 16)
  • The Bi Linguist


    • ...and my particular favourite:

  • Bi Now, Gay Later

    • - 5/28/2009 11:38:00 am 6 comments
    Labels:

    54321

    Over the last two days I've watched thirteen episodes of Countdown with Keith Olbermann1. Seven of them consecutive. And I've picked up a few things along the way, about American politics. So if the subject doesn't excite you in hidden places, skip.

  • Ann Coulter's reflexive contrarianism is now so boring, even those who reflexively rebut her...can't be bothered any more.

  • Sean Hannity is on similar autopilot.

  • Rush Limbaugh is really, really needy. He's got nothing to say anymore beyond "There's no problem" (about the environment, the economy, the war and the Republican party) and "I was right" (about everything) - but is desperate for unquestioning disciples.

  • Micheal Steele (Republican National Committee Chair) is a loose cannon. He's one of those people who has half an idea and rushes to tell the press, before thinking it through, or discussing it with his own people.

  • Newt Gingrich has become the same but with brains.

  • Dick Cheney is two people. Cheney1 controlled Bush like a ventriloquist, juggled a dozen agencies to get the culture he wanted, and is a very smart, subtle operator. Cheny2 is a very stupid, unsubtle operator. He goes on TV, telling the world just what he did, which laws he broke, which principles he violated...and how he was morally right to do it. But not why.

  • The CIA can't even keep accurate records of which lies they told to who and when.

  • The Democrats are spineless. They talk a good fight about liberty and justice, but you've only got to suggest a vague potential threat to "national security", and they do exactly what you want.

  • The Republicans are split between the lunatics (Texas seccionists, teabaggers, those who think the Democrats are "socialists") and reformers (like Colin Powell(!)) who think two viable parties is kind of the minimum for a functioning democracy.

  • Sarah Palin really does think she could be president in 2012, and she's pissing off her own core support campaigning for it now - neglecting her real job and being a prima donna.

  • Bill O'Reilly is the Worst Person in the World.

  • Omaba is...difficult to get a handle on.


    • Oh, there's one other thing. It's often said that the best political commentators are comedians. I suspect it's more complicated - political commentators disguise their commentary as comedy so people'll listen. The right wing for some reason still haven't produced a commentator-comedian who's only funny when they intend to be.


    1If you feel like a view of Olbermann without the propaganda bias of the liberal media elite, try Conservapedia and Olbermanwatch. And stop laughing, it's ungodly.
    - 5/22/2009 01:29:00 am 4 comments

    Guitar Anti-Hero

    Steve Krenz is an accomplished guitarist and guitar teacher, and he can help you not just learn but master rock guitar. At least, that's what Steve Krenz says. Has he really played with the greats of American rock, does he know his A-Sus-4 from his E-Aug-7, could he teach a penguin to waddle? I've no idea.

    A quick google search produces a wealth of hits - most of them suspiciously similar. At the top there's three sites with sponsored placement.

    One's called "Steve Krenz Guitar Scam?" and asks "Is Steve Krenz A Liar?". The answer comes back, "I think Learn and Master Guitar is a great course" and "I would recommend Learn and Master Guitar to you any day".

    Hmmm. The second advises "Before Buy Steve Krenz's L&M Guitar Make Sure You've Read This First!", before telling us...

    "Steve Krenz is the creator of Learn & Master Guitar. He has taught thousands of guitar lessons to guitar players of all ages and skill levels helping them go from where they are to where they want to be."


    Are you starting to see a pattern? The third asks ""Steve Krenz" a Scam?", even managing to suggest with the scare quotes that this scammer uses a fake name. On the site we find the banner "Read My Independent Review and Discover the Truth of Learn & Master Guitar Now!"...followed by...

    The DVDs are the best I've seen from any program...The instructor, Steve Krenz (world famous guitar player, teacher and professional)...provides the information to the students...to promote more effective learning.


    Yes. It looks like a purveyor of dubious product is anticipating his own exposure, and muddying the waters with fake exposes, with a series of pretend-critical "independent reviews" - all looking like they're written by the same person.

    But they're all so sycophantic, so overflowing with effusive praise that tells us nothing specific about the course, so obviously fake, overdone and badly done, that I can't imagine anyone being taken in.

    A few of the sites try to adopt a more realistic tone - somewhat marred by the fact that the ever-so-slightly "critical" article is duplicated around the net, and attributed to different writers.

    Other sources - seemingly genuinely independent - don't praise the product to the hilt. But neither do they slam it. Steve Krenz's 10 DVD guitar course probably can teach you to play the guitar, and probably isn't a scam or waste of money if you're a serious student.

    The marketing just makes it look that way. It seems we've now reached the stage when "viral" marketing and planted reviews actually work against the product - at least for those who aren't terminally gullible.

    Advertisers have always lied to consumers, consumers have always disbelieved them, advertisers have found new ways to lie, and after a few months consumers caught on and disbelieved them too. Now advertisers are pretending to be consumers debunking advertisers - and consumers don't believe that anymore.

    I don't know what the next stage is, but I somehow doubt it'll be a return to slightly less dishonest advertising.
    - 5/17/2009 12:45:00 am 1 comments

    But It's All Shit!

    "I don't know why I've always loved talking about poop, but to me it is a great tool in detecting what's wrong in our bodies. I continuously monitor [my son] Evan's poop by sending it to labs to get tested to make sure things are all running smoothly..."
    - Jenny McCarthy (anti-vaccination nut)
    I need to stop wasting time. That's what I've been doing for the last fortnight - a lot of mental activity, all spent on pointless persuits.

    Last week I hacked a porn site. Or rather, last week I spent five minutes figuring out how to hack a porn site, another five finding an effective but inelegant way to get around the DRM...followed by two days failing to get a more elegant way to work. And then five days of downloading smut from the 70s and 80s.

    One day I might feel like watching it.

    This week was spent mostly arguing with net nuts on youtube. Here's a sample of their wisdom:

    "Black people have dancing in their blood they are born with it thats why they got rythym and they have amazing moves." [ILoveKelseyBriggs]

    "i can be friends with gay but i dont like when some 1 stand behing me lol" [ghhf1]

    "An elementary rule of Scripture is that God has deliberately included SEEMINGLY contradictions in His Word" [bornagain001]

    "god doesn't like homos - he finds them awfully irritating." [dirtyskank007]

    "New Coke wasn't a blunder it was a deliberate long-term strategy to make regular Coke into the more prestigious Coca-Cola Classic" [derpenstein]

    "How gives a shit about mixed up gay people. Fuck them." [Machtvollkommenheit]

    "Global warming is a huge lefty scam to take money from the poor and give it to the rich, like Al Gore." [unknown nut]

    "I decided to be heterosexual because I was raised that way." [TheFlashBeer]


    There's been other things - weeding someone's garden (two days), fixing someone's computer (two nights), writing blog rants then deciding not to publish them (too much) - but I'm feeling the need for something that

    (a) stretches my abilities a bit
    (b) is enjoyable
    (c) I actually want to do, and
    (d) isn't a complete and utter blithering waste of time.

    So I'm going to invent some musical instruments. Software ones, that is. I've been hovering around the forums for the software that makes software instruments...and I reckon a week of intensive study should get me famillar with it.

    So this is me, not wasting time anymore.
    - 5/16/2009 12:32:00 am 2 comments

    Arte del Banco

    A few days ago I was alone in the house when the phone rang. I answered it, and the voice on the other end claimed to be from Barclay's bank - asking to speak to my father.

    Now, the previous week someone had called, claiming to be Barclays, asking him to "confirm" his bank details. Yes, it was a scam, trying to get his sort code and account number, and dad did his routine of keeping them hanging on the line for half an hour, making friendly chat at great length about nothing, before saying he wasn't a Barclay's customer and putting the phone down. Nice one dad.

    This time I decided to play along, pretending to be my father. If it was a scam, that would become apparent pretty quickly, and I could do my routine of giving lots of vague, contradictory and evasive answers...before telling them to fuck off. Or if it really was the bank, I could just be conveniently called away and hang up.

    They had some security questions, to check that I really was my dad. First question: What are the last two letters of your mother's maiden name?

    After a few seconds wracking my brain, I spat out two letters - immediately realising I'd got them wrong. The bank didn't seem to mind, telling me that was fine and moving on to the next security question.

    When was my year of birth? I couldn't remember what year my father was born, and he's always cagey about his age, so I took a wild guess. Which was accepted as correct.

    So we moved on to review "my" financial arrangements. The lady caller told me all about my father's standing orders, and I said it all sounded "about right". And no I didn't want to make any changes.

    She then moved on to the real point of the call - to offer to change my account to the new high interest version. This is where you get slightly more interest, and get charged GBP50 a day if you go overdrawn.

    I said no thanks, as we'd already examined and rejected all the new accounts - which was even true. She immediately lost interest and said goodbye.

    So, I now know several things:

    (1) It probably was Barclay's Bank.
    (2) Cold callers can't tell the difference between a man in his 30s and an asthmatic ex-smoker in his 70s.
    (3) My father's financial arrangements - he probably isn't supporting a second family on the other side of town.
    (4) Security questions are a meaningless ritual - they don't bother to check your answer.
    (5) Had I wanted to, I could have got a lot more info. And changed it.

    I hope this has helped you feel just a little happier about banking security.
    - 5/09/2009 08:29:00 am 2 comments

    Of Music and Meaning

    Another miniature essay, this one posted to a discussion on how bad people are at guessing the intended meaning of musical pieces.
    The clouds and hills in a landscape painting don't look like real clouds and hills.

    It's not just that they're in 2D and reality is in 3D - it's that the textures, shadows, surfaces etc. don't look like the real thing, even taking the missing dimension into account. And yet we can still comment on the artist on being "realistic" or "unrealistic", "capturing the scene" or "reproducing what they saw".

    Why? Because there are, in our culture, conventions about how clouds etc. are represented in painting. These conventions change over time, which is why a landscape painting from 1700 doesn't look like one from 19001.

    So it is in music. Soaring strings don't resemble "romance" in any way, high pitched stabs don't "sound like" fear, and trombone slides don't have anything in common with slapstick comedy. But if you watch a film, the incidental music tells you what emotion you're supposed to associate with what you see. If you remove the music you see how flat it generally falls, and if you watch a foreign film, sometimes the soundtrack is puzzling.

    Smoky saxophones are sexy, kazoos are comical, arpeggios are dramatic, church organs are elegiac, sitars are mystical. We all know this vocabulary connecting sounds to moods and situations, and it's so familiar we rarely question it2.

    But vocabularies change over time, and are different in different cultures. That's one reason why a piece of music changes it's meaning - or loses it.



    1Even when the paintings are "of" the same landscape. It's the same with seascapes. You can't judge how the sea really looked in 1750 from a painting of it made at the time - you can only judge how most artists learned to paint it.
    2There's an old trick of changing the background music to see how the audience interpretation changes. Trashy documentaries tend to use "ominous" bass synth drones - try mentally replacing one with the lush high strings of romantic drama, and see how the message of the programme changes.
    - 5/04/2009 01:00:00 pm 1 comments

    The World of Sex

    NightCharm have an article, in their usual provocative style, on the differences in mainstream attitudes towards cruising and other forms of "devience" between America and the Netherlands. My comment developed into a mini-essay of it's own. Here it is.
    Who was it said, "In America sex is an obsession. In the rest of the world it's a fact."...?1

    It was Eric Idle who said, "In America, religion is all about sex."

    Here in the UK we're halfway between America and "the rest of the world". Here no one cares about religion2
    but everyone's obsessed with sex. In fact, the one thing that turns lifelong, shoulder-shrugging agnostics into demented bible-bashers is...mansex.

    Not the existence of gay people, not lesbians having sex, not gay male couples being happy and monogamous together - mansex. Men having sex with each other.

    That's why all our out gay male celebrities are painfully asexual - including the ones from America3. They can talk about it all the time, and it's seen as good family fun, but if there's the slightest hint they DO it, they're dropped from TV and vilified in the newspapers.


    1It was Marlene Dietrich.
    2Unless it's Islam, but that's not really about religion at all - it's very thinly disguised racism.
    3I was thinking of John Barrowman here. But it also applies to Graham Norton, Larry Grayson, Andrew Haydon-Smith, Danny LaRue, John Inmann and every other out or outed British entertainer I can think of.
    - 5/04/2009 05:10:00 am 2 comments

    Talking to the Wall

    Which is worse - a fool with an education or one without?

    To help answer this vital question, here are two case studies from recent YouTube comments. The first is on a brief video satire on why it's absurd to claim being gay is a choice. This is the "uneducated" case study, in which an evangelist debated with, erm, someone called Kapitano.
    Bornagain001:
    Do not give what is holy to the dogs; nor cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you in pieces."
    Matthew 7:6


    Kapitano:
    I trust you're making *some* sort of point, oh born again one. Perhaps you're even responding to other people's points.

    But if you want to stand a chance of being persuasive, an explanation is the minimum required.

    A contextless quote from the King James Bible won't cut it.


    Bornagain001:
    My purpose here is NOT to persuade you of anything but to WARN YOU of the very real ETERNAL CONSEQUENCE your present life is taking you.


    Kapitano:
    Perhaps if you were to be persuasive, your warning might be effective.

    Ah, unless you don't really want to save anyone from damnation - you just want to gloat that we'll be damned and you'll be safe and smug in heaven.


    Bornagain001:
    God knew you would SIN....God PROVIDED the ONLY WAY to get that forgiveness.


    Kapitano:
    That's called a "Protection Racket".

    Which makes god a gangster.


    There then follows a day's worth of "debate" over whether the flood story is literally true. Bornagain001 was beaten several times by people much smarter and more patient than me - not that he noticed.

    Bornagain001:
    I AM NOT wise. What I am relaying to you comes from GOD'S INFALLIBLE WORD. My suggestion is that you gain a little wisdom and start paying attention.


    Kapitano:
    Your infallible words seem to be failing quite a lot.

    The ark is impossible, hell is a mistranslation, the bible is disproven, god doesn't exist and you are an idiot.

    Oh, and being gay isn't a choice.


    Bornagain001:
    "The way of a fool is right in HIS OWN EYES,
    But he who heeds counsel is wise."
    Proverbs 12:15

    Our second case study is a much more refined affair, in the comments of a 1946 educational film. Here, a defender of the Chicago school of Neo-liberal economics debates rationally with, um, some bloke called Kapitano.

    GrampaCrusty:
    The government protectionism you are referring to is NOT a capitalist principle. It is socialism at the corporate level - redistribution of wealth. Taking money from people/companies that have earned it and giving it to companies that have not. REdistribution of wealth. And even at the corporate level, it is anti-competitive because as you pointed out, owners aren't risking their own money anymore, which encourages carelessness.
    That is not a capitalist principle. Its corporate socialism.


    Kapitano:
    You're getting confused between capitalism regulated by government, and socialism.


    GrampaCrusty:
    No, redistribution of wealth in any capacity is an aversion from capitalism. Capitalism regulated by government means enacting laws to protect people from things like predatory lending and unfair business practices.
    If you are redistributing wealth (spreading it around), you are engaging in socialism, which is nothing more than the path to communism.


    Kapitano:
    You speak as though there were only one form of capitalism. Historically there have been dozens.

    "If you are redistributing wealth...you are engaging in socialism, which is nothing more than the path to communism."

    ...according to your private definitions of the words. And again you speak as though there were one form of 'socialism' or 'communism'.

    Both words have several meanings. Try being clear.


    GrampaCrusty:
    In the context of this discussion, unless otherwise stated, American capitalism is understood.

    Socialism:
    a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done.
    - Merriam-Webster
    Again, in the context of "path to communism" there was little question which definition was being referenced.


    Kapitano:
    Which American capitalism? Enterpreneurial "wild west" capitalism, government sponsored capitalism under Roosevelt-LBJ, Chicago-school capitalism under Regan-BushJr...?

    So that's the MW definition of 'socialism'? Never come across that one before. Not surprising they got Marx completely wrong though - he never used the term like that.


    GrampaCrusty:
    Absent statements to the contrary, its typical to assume present time.
    This discussion is not an exhortation on the many forms of economic systems.
    The simple MW definitions are sufficient - that being the system of economics characterized by distribution of goods determined mainly by competition in a free market for capitalism.
    Goverenment mandated redistribution of wealth is not free market competition.
    These differences are stark enough to differentiate the two approaches.


    Kapitano:
    "Goverenment mandated redistribution of wealth is not free market competition."

    You mean it's not compatible with *pure* free market competition - which has never existed.

    "Impure" free market competition - as with a mixed nationalised/privatised economy, or partial wealth redistribution - is manifestly a possible form of capitalism. One that you're living in.

    To call it socialist is like calling feudalism capitalism because it's got merchants.


    GrampaCrusty:
    Depends on your definition of "pure".

    The simple fact is (remember, this is YouTube, not a PhD dissertation) is the more wealth redistribution you have, the more socialist leaning you are.

    Obama's redistribution of wealth (spreading it around) is government intervention taking money from those that have earned in honest reward and giving to those who have not.
    Redistributing wealth. That is a socialist principle. Not a free market or capitalist principle. Don't get lost in minutia.


    Kapitano:
    "Redistributing wealth. That is a socialist principle."

    Is America a socialist country? No. Is it a country where capitalism is becoming slightly more constrained? Yes.

    Is redistribution of wealth a socialist principle? Yes. Is it a principle unique to socialists? No.

    Is Obama a socialist? No. Does he want to end capitalism? No. Does he want to save the American capitalist economy? Yes. Do you approve of his method? No. Will it work? Unknown.

    In short:

    Is it helpful to conflate redistribution by socialists to attack capitalism with redistribution by capitalists to help capitalism? No.


    GrampaCrusty:
    Not so fast.
    America is becoming increasingly socialist. Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security, etc. These are government redistribution methods. Taking from those with ability, giving to those in "need" (or want in many cases) - Marxist philosophy, not capitalism.
    Obama is a socialist. Look into it - he was a member of Chicago's "New Party" - a socialist organization, in the late 1990's.
    Taking from certain people against their will and giving to others, is abandoning capitalism.

    So what's the verdict?

    One argues their position by redefining words to suit, the other does it with threats, and both seem to think endless restatement is persuasive in itself. One speaks grandly and tries to sound like an academic, the other SHOUTS AT YOU ALL THE TIME, and both do it to cover a certain fuzziness. Winding up the bible-basher (koran-basher, atlas-shrugged-basher etc) is much more fun, but doesn't call for any actual thought.

    You can't actually win an argument against either of these types, because even when you fix them down to a definite position they can't wriggle out of - and explain why that position makes no sense - they forget instantly that it's happened. It's like knocking down the energiser bunny. Or nailing mist to the wall.

    As for which of the three players is the fool and who's got the education, that's for you to decide.
    - 5/03/2009 06:41:00 am 2 comments

    M'aider

    Happy Mayday.

    Britain's Chancellor is predicting the recession will last ten years - based on absurdly optimistic growth predictions.

    Bank bailouts are going on pay rises for bankers.

    The facists are getting confident. And the police are...doing their bit

    The papers are half full of "Swine Flu will kill 140 million", and half full of "Swine Flu's all hype so don't worry". So completely full of shit as usual.

    The prevailing reasoning seems to be: The Bird Flu and SARS outbreaks didn't become epidemics, therefore they were never going to become epidemics, therefore anything that might become an epidemic...won't.

    Britain's pulled out of Iraq. And Trying to be dignified about it.

    I thought you were supposed to declare victory before leaving.

    Chrysler has gone bankrupt.

    So in short: Everything is continuing to go wrong.


    - 5/01/2009 05:30:00 am 3 comments

    Ball Busted

    Growing up is a long process. For most of us it starts in late teens, and finishes in early forties. A few lucky (some would say unlucky) souls begin before they're out of puberty, and a very few excellent individuals don't stop till they die.

    I think it happens in distinct moments - when things happen to make you you realise something, understand something, understand it more deeply...or see that everything you've been told for years is not just false, and not just obviously false, but obviously impossible.

    And a lot of the time, these are moments of disappointment, as when some public figure you admired as a child turns out to be a pillock. Or a fraud, a sellout, a nutcase, a hypocrite or a bastard.

    David Bellamy, for instance. He was an infectiously enthusiastic, Kris-Kringle-like TV scientist. A botanist who presented documentaries on biology for kids, and never once patronised his audience. I remember sitting around the family early-evening meal, with Bellamy on TV explaining the digestive system of a transparent worm, or the reproductive cycle of the whelk.

    Like a lot of naturalists, he was also an ecologist, joining campaigns to save forests years before the media started treating such causes sympathetically.

    So what does he do now? He's a climate change denialist. Read that again to let it sink in.

    His ecological "campaigning" now is funded by oil companies, so he now writes articles on how glaciers aren't shrinking, CO2 isn't "really" a greenhouse gas, and windfarms can't possibly work.

    Then there was Richard Feynmann, who may indeed have been "the best mind since Einstein", but spent vast amounts of time and energy trying to give the impression that he was "the best mind since Einstein". As well as being something of a sexual predator - the kind who wants women but doesn't really like them.

    Incidentally, Einstein himself took care to preserve his image as the endlessly compassionate, lovably eccentric and humble-but-infallible grandpappy you never had.

    James Burke turns out to be a sometimes shoddy researcher as well as purveyor of strained "Connections".

    Even Stephen Jay Gould (who I still read and admire greatly) went off the rails towards the end of his life. As he realised he wasn't going to beat cancer a second time, he started turning out blurry, wordy essays trying to reintegrate religion into his scientific worldview. I suppose a lot of people start hoping for an afterlife when they see the end of the current one in view.

    Well, today I reckon I grew up just a little bit more, beacuse I've found out what happened to Johnny Ball. He was a TV science populariser in the 70s and 80s, like Bellamy. Now he tours the UK, presenting fun science to schoolchildren. And he's turned into a climate change denialist like Bellamy too.

    Oh, and he's a religious nutcase. From his blog:

    One thing that really annoys me is the idea that the Pope and Galileo had a row. They didn’t. With his telescope everyone could see that the moon had mountains like the earth and was not a perfect sphere as suggested by the bible. Galileo knew the church couldn’t accept a theory that conflicted with the bible. So he went out of his way to find a middle ground, writing explanations that gave both points of view. However, someone suggested that Galileo was mocking the Pope and brought a charge of heresy. This set a problem. If Galileo was found “Not Guilty”, then the church, (i.e. the Pope himself) would be guilty of heresy. So Galileo had to admit the charge. His punishment was as light as could possibly be. He was placed under house arrest, but could choose where and which house he lived in - he moved three times before he died. Could it have been more lenient?


    Okay. The bible doesn't "suggest" the moon is smooth, or not. It says the moon makes its own light (Genesis 10) and doesn't move (Isiah 182) but if I recall correctly, the notion of a smooth moon comes from Aristotle.

    Galileo didn't try to find a "middle ground". He wrote a treatise in debate form, in which the representative of the church was completely defeated by the evidence.

    "Someone" "suggested" Galileo was "mocking" the pope? Who is this "someone", and why did this "suggestion" lead unavoidably to a trial?

    Galileo recanted under threat of torture, not to save the pope the bizarre inconvenience of being a heretic in his own church - which he wouldn't have been anyway.

    And lifelong imprisonment is lenient?

    Ah well, another childhood memory bites the dust.
    - 4/25/2009 03:31:00 pm 2 comments

    They'll be Calling You a Radical

    Welcome to the forth and final installment of "Things I said to people on the net before I realised they weren't listening".

    The theme: Politics.
    "War is human nature"

    Oh I see, humans are genetically programmed to be greedy and stupid. Except when they're not. And history doesn't explain why you get centuries of peace then suddenly war - it's just human nature.

    "Wars happen for economic and religious reasons, not historical"

    So history excludes economics and religion. Then what exactly is history the history of?
    "Counter-culture is just fashion these days."

    The aspects of counterculture which get shown in mainstream media are music, clothes, food, drink and slang. The politics gets edited out. Hence the appearance that there is no politics, just fashion.
    "These people are all completely crazy... and in no way representative of most Americans."

    The point is not that they're a minority, or that they're stupid. or that they're a bit mad. That's obvious. The point is that they're in charge.
    When isn't armed rebellion criminal?

    If the government lies to it's people, they are right to protest and demand the truth.

    If the government tortures or kills it's people, they are right to destroy it.
    "12 year olds are vulnerable. 20 - 30 year olds are adults."

    Compare these two statements:
    * 20-30 year olds are legally adults.

    * 20-30 year olds are completely sorted emotionally, and are in possession of all the facts [...] enabling them to make an objective decision. They don't make mistakes and can't be conned.
    "Anti-war groups were infiltrated by the KGB"

    And the CIA. And MI5. And sometimes each other.

    The best way to deal with the possibility of infiltrators is to ignore it. If you start suspecting that this or that person's a spy, you get locked into a spiral of suspicion, accusation, counter-accusation, and paranoia.

    If you just treat them like people who are what they appear, then - if they're agents - they'll soon work out they won't learn anything from infiltrating that they wouldn't learn from reading your publications. And sometimes you convert them in the meantime.

    Occasionally someone will join with the intent of sowing discord. To destroy a group from within, it needs to trust you, which means you have to spend months insinuating yourself, before starting to play psychological games. At which point, you have maybe two months before you're recognised and asked politely to leave.
    "Blacks are more criminal than whites."

    There is a correlation between being black and being poor. The reason, obviously, is that racism creates ghettos, which having become established can persist even after the racism has lessened.

    There is a correlation between poverty and crime. The reason, obviously, is that poor people have more incentive to steal, and less reason to play by the rules which leave them at a disadvantage.

    [So] the black man in a citysuit is less likely to steal you wallet than the white boy in the tracksuit.
    "How Should we remember 9/11?"

    The event that triggered WW3.

    The world's greatest excuse.

    A meticulously planned and completely counterproductive act of resistance.

    A small demonstration of why terrorism doesn't work.

    The day it became impossible to have an intelligent discussion about politics.
    "Is it sexist to screen woman for ovarian cancer when men can't get it?"

    To treat unequal people equally is to treat them unequally.

    [Other, less restrained responses did spring to mind.]
    How to think clearly about religion

    Faith in Allah is just as idiotic as faith in Yahweh, and Muslims are just as capable of being good or bad people, in spite of or because of their faith, as members of any other religion.

    When Muslims are attacked, we defend them. Why do we defend them? Is it because they're Muslim? No, it's because they're being attacked. Understand? To defend a Muslim is not to defend Islam.
    - 4/23/2009 03:22:00 pm 3 comments

    Sci-Curious

    And now the third installment of Kapitano's Klever Komments - some of the better things I posted in discussion forums in 2004, and have just rediscovered. Seeing as there's nothing exciting happening in my present life.

    Today's theme...Science.
    "My IQ is 156"

    And you're still gullible enough to think that's meaningful?
    "Brains or looks?"

    Looks are for looking at. It's all they're good for.
    Bio-words

    'Complexity' is loosely quantifiable in terms of 'heterogeneity of parts'. A worm has a lot of parts - segments - but most of them are all the same. A crab may have less parts - leg, big claw, small claw, eye, stomach etc - but they're all very different.

    And yes, it's perfectly true that adaptation can take place by losing complexity.

    'Advancement' is not quantifiable, or indeed meaningful, for an entire organism. It is possible to say that the sense of smell of one animal is more 'advanced' than of another, in the sense of being able to detect odours from fewer molecules entering the nose. In this sense, dogs have more advanced noses than humans.
    Dyslexia (Part 1)

    A child falls behind in school. They're diagnosed as dyslexic. They get extra tuition. They end up reading better than their classmates who didn't get the extra tuition.

    Now read that paragraph again, but omit the second sentence. What exactly has changed?
    Dyslexia (Part 2) - "As a child I was great at maths and terrible at reading."

    You were good at some things and bad at others. Just like everyone else on the planet.

    At age 7, I was extraordinarily good at reading, and almost completely unable to do maths. At 13 I was top of the year in computing and science, but didn't get GCSE maths till I was 20.

    Am I discalculate? Am I superlexic? Do I have this week's fashionable condition? No, I just enjoyed reading and had no interest at all in mathematics. I'm currently studying sound DSP algorithms, which needs a fair grasp of calculus, and lo and behold, now that I have a use for maths I can do it.
    Dyslexia (Part 3) - "There are bits of my brain-and the brain of every dyslexic-that are physically different from non-dyslexics. That's a known fact."

    It's a common assertion. Put it with all the other 'known facts' and 'scientifically proven truths'. Like the one about how the left-brain is logical and the right-brain emotional, or the one about how women are better at multitasking than men.

    Or the currently unfashionable one about how the brains of black people have large motor cortices and small anterior cognitive sections. These have all been 'proven', until the evidence was investigated and found to be pitiful.

    Once upon a time, 'Possession by Demons' was a respected diagnoses. Then it was discovered that demons don't exist. In Freud's time, women who were unhappy, eccentric, or adulterous were labeled Hysteric. Until the 1950s, homosexuality and prostitution were commonly called 'sexual disorders'.

    In the 1970s, the fashion was for Multiple Personality Disorder. Tens of thousands were diagnosed, then it was discovered the number of people with actual multiple personalities was vanishingly small, and possibly zero.

    In the 1980s there were two really wierd trends - Alien Abduction and Satanic Abuse. The lack of aliens or satanists took some time to be noticed. In the 1990s, children whose boisterousness annoyed parents were labeled 'hyperactive' - it's still uncertain whether there is such a thing, and whether it's triggered by food allergies or not.

    In the late 1990s, drug companies desperate for a new market invented Attention Deficit Disorder - previously known as 'kids bored by school and ignoring parents'.

    And in the new millennium, any form of social awkwardness or eccentric behavior is put down to Asperger's Syndrome. For which there is no real test, and no neurological or psychological cause posited. The behavioral test is laughably vague.

    Dyslexia is, at best, a very vague term describing a range of symptoms. What these might be symptoms of is completely unknown. Saying a person has trouble reading because they are dyslexic is like saying morphine causes sleep because it's a soporific.
    "Science is just another religion."

    With prayers, a revered founder, miracles, a moral code, and an afterlife, yes?
    Planets

    Planets tend to be oblate spheroids.

    Yes, that's right. Squashed balls.
    - 4/22/2009 04:02:00 pm 5 comments

    I Believe in Miracles

    More stuff mysteriously saved from my days on internet discussion forums.

    Today's theme...Sex!
    "Bisexuals just haven't made up their mind yet."

    So people with dual nationality don't know where they live?
    What kind of kisser are you?

    I'm the kind who sometimes gets kissed but never gets to kiss back.
    "A man faced an Australian court yesterday charged with having sexual relations with a rabbit."

    So, when a man mutilates and kills animals, what is he charged with? Sexual perversion.
    Straight men who want you to "relieve" them because no woman will

    Ah well, you know how these things go.

    They love to think they're keeping you on tenterhooks with teasing and promises, then they finally let you do it and they have to be in control, and immediately afterwards they come over all embarrassed and gruff, muttering things like "That was just a one-off right?"

    Straight blokes. Who needs them?
    Ex-gay therapy (Part 1)

    Oh yes, I used to hang around with a bunch of 'ex-gay' christians. Well, I was writing a thesis on wacky cults at the time but they weren't to know that.

    You put most gay men in a room together, and they talk about whatever straight blokes talk about. With a bit more Abba and Dr Who, maybe. This lot couldn't wait to tell each other in exquisite detail about the last time they succumbed to temptation. It was meant to be a six month project - I gave it up after six weeks because (apart from the 'bible study' classes) they did nothing but talk about sex.

    As for the thesis, it was eventually about Scientology, Objectivism and Neuro-Linguistic Programming. [Ex-gay groups] Exodus and NARTH got a footnote.
    Ex-gay therapy (Part 2) - "So how Ex Gay were they? Were they more like Still Gays?"

    Still Gay But Self HatingTM.

    Or as they put it "on a long journey from the gay lifestyle (sic) to the light of Jesus (sick)". Or sometimes "struggling with same-sex attraction".

    So far as I could tell, they believed that the journey from 'hellbound' to 'normal' was an indefinitely prolonged obstacle course of temptation and doubt, full of setbacks and (so to speak) slippery poles. No one had yet made it through to the other side, but anyone who did would be cured not by their own efforts but by Jesus.

    The chief sin was 'pride' or 'lack of submission'. If you failed it was not so much through lack of emotional strength, but because you hadn't subdued your own desires to those of God sufficiently. Some of the literature spoke of how you had to be 'broken' by God, like a rebellious horse.

    On the one hand, they're severely damaged people in need of affection. On the other, they're a bunch of hypocritical tosspots.
    Ex-gay therapy (Part 3) - "What if the men being 'altered' don't want to be gay?"

    You're missing the point.

    What is it about being gay that's so unbearable for some and not for others? Answer: other people's reactions. Unless you think there's some other reason why the only gay men who enter these groups are those who are hated for their sexuality.

    No. I've seen people move from one preferring gender to the other, and indeed back again. They did it because they were curious, and they enjoyed the experience.

    The issue is not whether someone wants to try playing for the other side. That happens all the time. The issue is what makes them want to do it.
    Where do babies come from?

    When I was 4 I wanted to know where puppies came from. So I asked my parents. They lied to me.

    I wonder what they thought they were achieving?
    "Are you ever envious of the opposite sex?"

    Women find it so easy to meet gay men. So yeah, I'm envious.
    Tomorrow's theme...Science. With or without an exclamation mark.
    - 4/21/2009 12:36:00 pm 4 comments

    The Haunted Fishtank

    A few years ago I went through a phase of discussing stuff on internet forums. Then I realised it was an enormous waste of time and stopped. But I saved some contributions, which I've just rediscovered.

    Here's a selection. The theme is...Television
    Tonight's TV

    0700: A forgotten detective drama from the 70s.

    0800: Two blokes in flares and fringe haircuts, named after US presidents, shouting, firing guns and driving too fast. Watch out for the cringingly sexist bit.

    0900: More of the same, but with a better theme tune. This week's villain is a fat black man with a HUGE afro haircut.

    1000: Are You Being Bloody Served. Don't ask, just don't.

    1100: A remake of something from, er, the 70s.

    1200: News

    1205: Some sitcom from the states.

    1300: Another sitcom from the states. Or it might be the same one, I don't know.

    1400: Something about how guns are made. Very macho. Honest.

    1500: Yet another fucking sitcom from the states. Same jokes as the other two.

    1600: Afternoon movie about some police detective who spends a lot of time in strip joints. Something about political corruption and prostitutes being murdered.

    ...

    2100: Tonight's "erotic thriller". Three snogging scenes, a woman taking a long bath before being stabbed brutally to death, and one hilarious scene where a gay man wearing a dress gets shot 27 times.

    1100: Our pretend reality TV show. Really a lot of porn starlets in bikinis walking around somewhere in Spain.

    0000: The crap sci-fi hour. Conspiracy theories, woman with red hair, ambiguous ending. Usual stuff.

    0100: A show about a man in a very long scarf who lives in a phonebox. We've got it because UK Gold were too stupid to keep it.
    Annoying TV Cliches

    The tart with the heart. American prostitutes are ridiculously glamorous and happy. British prostitutes have fishnet tights, a mass of dyed blond hair, a perpetual cigarette and loads of bonhomie.

    The criminal psychologist who dresses up trite observations into psychobabbling generalisations. "He kills women slowly so...he needs to be in control. He's a driven personality."

    The young schoolteacher/priest who goes cruising and can't tell his annoyingly naive wife.

    The hard-as-nails superbitch assistant investigator. It's her job to bully suspects and make snide remarks. She always has a troubled personal life - usually a senile mother who goes missing.

    The detective who 'bends the rules' but it's okay because he always gets the bad guy in the end. The bad guy is an incidental character you meet near the beginning, then forget about, until a chance remark from a witness reveals him to be the unsuspected psychopath mastermind.
    Empires in Science Fiction

    Buck Rogers had a benevolent government with a peaceful empire that was threatened by outsiders driven by greed and sometimes insanity.

    Farscape had a corrupt and murderous empire, threatened by another, equally bad.

    Star Trek, in all it's forms, had a good empire threatened by a collection of bad empires.

    Blake's 7 had a single corrupt government and military empire, threatened by outsiders (the heroes) driven by a desire for freedom.
    TV Executives

    What is it about TV producers makes them think they can do creative stuff too? It's like the chairman of the board who thinks he can relate to customers.

    In Britain, we deal with our idiots by putting them on TV as chat show hosts or political pundits. In America, they make them TV executives.

    And sometimes presidents, but mostly producers and scriptwriters.
    On a Doctor Who charity special

    Unmitigated fartblowing shitspray. Absolute brainmelting tripe. Eyestabbingly teethgrindingly hideous. A pissshakingly sofamunching whoremother of a fistbiting atrocity. A cowmutilatingly coprophagic rank spit gobbet of goretwisting glopchurning satanwank.

    Actually, I switched off after five minutes. It was boring.
    Babylon 5

    B5 urinates upon Trek from a great height. Farscape does the same to B5. As does B7 most of the time.

    For a long time, B5 was 'brilliant' simply because it was so much better than almost all of Trek. The thuggish original series, the wimpy TNG, the occasionally tense and insightful DSN that sold out, the soapy Voyager and finally the execrable Enterprise, which made TOS look sophisticated. Now we have Buffy, Firefly and, well, Doctor Who.

    It was impressive at the time. Now, B5 looks cosy and naive. The edgyness of it's characterisation is blunted by the knowledge that, however badly the characters behave, they're still fundamentally decent people who do the right thing. Unless they're the bad guys, in which case they're just always bad.

    Oh yes, and it reinvents human national stereotypes as alien races, with humans - as bloody usual - representing America, which is always in control and always in the right.
    So who are the Brits in the Star Trek universe?

    Vulcans. Logical, cold, sexually repressed, and encased in the delusion that Starfleet didn't own them.
    The first season of New Who

    It's about this bloke right, except he turns into this other bloke who's scottish but talks like a southerner, but anyway this bloke and his girlfriend right, well actually she's not really his girlfriend because it's like their relationship is enigmatic and anyway she's got a boyfriend except she left him and her mother to go off with him and she's a bit of a slapper anyway but it's okay because she's got a heart of gold and she swallows the vortex at the end and puts bad wolfs everywhere.
    - 4/20/2009 03:10:00 pm 4 comments

    Cheese

    "It was not symbolic of anything.
    This isn't that kind of movie."
    - Orson Welles, "F for Fake"
    About thirteen years ago, I'd just started living with a guy, and we were out on a romantic walk.

    We stopped at a petrol station shop for drinks, and he asked me if there was anything else on the shelves which we were short of at home.

    I said we were out of cheese, he said chose a package, I asked which he wanted, he said just chose whichever one you feel like.

    There was one which was his favourite, but I chose another because we hadn't tried it yet. He sighed, and behaved the rest of the day as though I'd deeply disappointed him.

    He spent the whole afternoon waiting for me to apologise. I spent the whole afternoon chatting breezily about random stuff, as though oblivious to his stony silence.

    From his point of view, he was patiently waiting for the moment when I'd crack and do the right thing. From mine, the fact that I'd done nothing wrong became unimportant - because I'd discovered what fun it was to punish him for being an arsehole simply by pretending I hadn't noticed he was furious.
    - 4/19/2009 05:07:00 pm 6 comments

    Socialising

    I seem to spend most of my free time with socialists. We just don't talk about politics much.

    What's the Hungarian word for amphetamine? There is one, and being Hungarian it's nothing like the English word and I can neither pronounce nor spell it. But that doesn't matter because no one uses it - they say "speed".

    How would you translate an idiom like "heavy water" into Hungarian? Actually, you'd do it literally. The people who measure beverages in decilitres and sometimes play songs in a musical mode not used anywhere else in the world...use an anglicism when talking about deuterium rich hydroxillic acid.

    How do you say "goodbye" in Hungarian? You wave and say "Halo!", which I think is pretty great.

    Yes, my friend Paul T - flamenco skatepunk guitarist, long time teffler, and the man who signed me up to the SWP - is visiting England with his Hungarian girlfriend, also a teacher.

    We sat on the beach, ate pizza, drank styrofoam tea, and talked about the British love of heroic failure, battleship design, and how the Spanish call some red wine "black wine" but the Portuguese call some white wine "green wine" - even though what we call white is actually yellow.

    Not a word about the 1956 revolution, G20 summit, or the deepening crisis of world capitalism.
    Comrades and computers don't seem to get along. There's a number of fellow local lefties who regularly call me up with technical troubles.

    Sometimes it's "I can't log onto my email", sometimes it's "The printer's beeping at me", occasionally it's "can you fix it so it'll understand my voice", and quite often it's "The flashing thing won't switch on anymore".

    Don't get me wrong - I like to feel needed and appreciated, I enjoy solving problems, and they generally cook nice things for me. Today it was spicy spaghetti followed by baked banana and ice cream, yesterday it was roast chicken and potatoes.

    But I have to ask: Is everyone so technically inept, or only those who describe technology as "means of production"?

    Defragging, cache clearing, firewall, virus scan, not clicking on spam offers of free porn? Basic care of equipment, but no, they can't quite see the point - and still can't see the connection when the flashing thing won't switch on anymore.

    My beloved Socialist Workers Party has finally started discussing, fifteen years after everyone else, that the internet might be a good means of reaching people.

    But anyway, that's the other reason why I spend my free time with socialists, not discussing politics.
    - 4/11/2009 04:19:00 am 11 comments

    T-wit t-wo

    I woke up to find two new people following me on Twitter.

    The first was "Winfred Delaney", who despite living in Ennis, Texas, runs a women's clothing shop in East Village, Manhattan. She also has exactly one tweet:

    I don't believe it, I just got a free iphone. Here's the link: http://tinyurl.com/cc9gss


    The link, like her credibility, is down. So, someone has found a way to set up spam accounts in Twitter. Oh deep fucking joy. She's got 61 following her - some of who seem to be real people. Obviously not very bright real people.

    She's blocked, reported, and hopefully soon history.

    I read somewhere that around 80% of internet traffic is spam. Whether that means 80% of communications or 80% of bytes transferred I don't know, and I'm not sure how anyone could gather such a statistic anyway.

    But I take some small comfort in the three gentlemen behind the famous Nigerian scams now being behind bars - for the next seven years. And the surprising thing is, two of them actually are Nigerian.
    My other, um, "follower" is billMaintsuper, who seems to be an actual flesh and blood person - and a plumber. Plus painter, decorator, electrician, locksmith, paver...and demolition man. A renaissance man of the building trade.

    I'm not sure why he's following, but seeing as he's following 976 others, I'll try not to make too much of it...like blogging about it, or anything.
    I was wondering why Twitter wasn't posting my SMS updates. Turns out it's not the result of following their confused instructions as written, or one of their increasingly frequent "busy" periods - it's just a feature that doesn't work for a lot of people.
    My Twiter profile, in 140 characters or less:

    Musical philosophical immoral orthogonal. Nonsmoking tealoving dogowning something. Artist atheist esperantist sodomist socialist.

    - 4/09/2009 08:55:00 am 2 comments

    Join the Pod People

    Have you ever thought of trying podcasting? You've got your blog at Blogger.com, and you'd like to include audio - commentary, music, interviews, or you just prefer to speak rather than type.

    If the answer's yes, this post may help. To podcast, you will need:

    (1) A microphone
    (2) A voice
    (3) Some audio software
    (4) Something to say
    (5) A place on the net to store the sound files, and
    (6) A way of getting them to stream from that place through your blog

    I can't help you with the first five, but might be able to reduce your headaches about the sixth.

    There's two basic approaches:
    (1) Embed a player into posts as and when you need to.

    This is the better way if you're going to post infrequently or irregularly - for instance, when you've recorded a new song.

    It's also advisable if you're going to post long audio - for instance, an interview that lasts an hour - because embedded players are easier to pause, rewind and fastforward.

    (2) Set up your blog template to treat any and all URLs of audio files as streamable.

    This is better if you're going to post lots of audio - for instance, whole albums at a time, or long recordings cut up into managable bits.
    Google provide one audio player. To use it, just paste this code into your blog post...

    <iframe style="border: 1px solid rgb(170, 170, 170); width:400px; height: 27px;" id="musicPlayer" src="http://www.google.com/reader/ui/3247397568-audio-player.swf?audioUrl=[URL:audio]"> </iframe>

    ...replacing [URL:audio] with the full address of the audio you want to stream, eg. http://sites.google.com/site/kapdemos/Home/Demo_1.mp3. The result looks like this:



    Click play and It'll stream.
    A different player is provided by Odeo. They're a podcast host themselves, but helpfully you can stream stuff not held on their servers with their player.

    This is the code...

    <embed src= "http://www.odeo.com/flash/audio_player_standard_gray.swf" quality="high" width="300" height="52" allowScriptAccess="always" wmode="transparent" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" flashvars= "valid_sample_rate=true&external_url=[URL:audio]" pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"></embed>


    ...and this is the result:


    Yahoo also provide a player.

    Code...

    <embed src="http://webjay.org/flash/dark_player" width="400" height="40" wmode="transparent" flashVars="playlist_url=[URL:audio]&skin_color_1=-145,-89,-4,5&skin_color_2=-141,20,0,0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash"></embed>


    ...and result:


    That's the first approach. What about the second?

    Log into Blogger, go to the Dashboard, then Layout, and Edit HTML. You'll be presented with the CSS code of your blog template.

    Scroll down till you find the </head> tag, insert a new empty line immidiately before that, and paste the javascript code - which I'll get to in a moment - into that space. Click Save Template.

    Now when you make a post to your blog, you can include links to your audio files like this...

    <a href="http://sites.google.com/site/kapdemos/Home/Demo_1.mp3">Demo 1</a>
    <a href="http://sites.google.com/site/kapdemos/Home/Demo_2.mp3">Demo 2</a>

    ...and the result will look like this:



    If you click on the underlined text, you can download the file. If you click on the arrow next to it, it'll stream to you. I haven't actually set up my blog to stream in this way, which is why there's only a picture, not a real link.

    So what's the code you paste into the template? You can use the Yahoo media player (not the same as their embedded player) with this code:

    <script src="http://mediaplayer.yahoo.com/js" type="text/javascript"></script>

    This will also create an unfoldable track selecter and player at the bottom left of your browser screen. I don't like that, but it's a matter of personal taste.


    Delicious also have a player, and this is the code:

    <script src="http://del.icio.us/js/playtagger" type="text/javascript"></script>

    It works in exactly the same way, but there's no selecter and the buttons are square. You can, if you really want to, use the Yahoo and Delicious streamers together, and each file will get two streaming buttons - though I'm not sure why you'd want to do it.
    But hang on a minute, you say. These corporations could withdraw support at any time, or start charging. I've got a little webspace of my own, so why can't I store my own player there?

    You can indeed do just that, and the method is something of a cross between the two I've been describing.

    Probably the most common self-hosted player, is from 1PixelOut, and is downloadable here. Unzip the two files - "audio-player.js" and "player.swf" - and place them somewhere convenient in your webspace - such as a folder of their own.

    In your Blogger template, just above the </head> tag, insert this...

    <script language="JavaScript" src="[URL:audio-player.js]"></script>

    ...replacing [URL:audio-player.js] with the actual address of the "audio-player.js" file.

    The following code then goes into your blog post, at the point you want the player to be displayed...

    <object type="application/x-shockwave-flash" data="[URL:player.swf]" id="audioplayer1" height="24" width="290">
    <param name="movie" value="[URL:player.swf]">
    <param name="FlashVars" value="playerID=1&soundFile=[URL:audio]">
    <param name="quality" value="high">
    <param name="menu" value="false">
    <param name="wmode" value="transparent">
    </object>

    ...substituting for [URL:player.swf] and [URL:audio] the locations of the "player.swf" file and your audio file, respectively.

    The result looks like this:


    Wouldn't it be easier to store these tiny files on Blogger? Yes it would, but Blogger won't provide a means for you to do so, and they're not alone. Google Sites, where I've been storing the example MP3s, also don't allow you to store javascript files on "your" webspace.

    Are there other self-host players? Undoubtedly - I just haven't found any yet.

    But hopefully this post has made starting podcasting a little less daunting for you.
    - 4/07/2009 03:24:00 am 7 comments
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