"Undermining my electoral viability since 2001."

Spit Check

I missed this one from SNL, but it's a goodie. Robert Smigel's "TV Funhouse" has some "fun with real-audio."

It's funny because it's depressing. It's funny and depressing!

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Spit Check

I missed this one from SNL, but it's a goodie. Robert Smigel's "TV Funhouse" has some "fun with real-audio."

It's funny because it's depressing. It's funny and depressing!

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Soymilk in my Coffee

It's like I'm on the westcoast already, except it's really that I'm too lazy to go buy more half'n'half.

Drywall hanging going on upstairs. Hope it's over soon.

Looking forward to the weekend. X3 tonight!

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A Victory for Net Neutrality

MyDD has the details, but basically there's a new bill to restore Net Neutrality provisions which will serve the same function as the amendment which was previously defeated. It just passed committee with good bipartisan support.

The lobby efforts of individuals is having a definite impact here, as it's harder and harder for Reps to ignore the fact that the only people who want Net Neutrality gone are big telcos. Everyone else (literally, from MoveOn to the Christian Coalition to Lawrence Lessig to Gleynn Reynolds) is in favor of keeping physical network owners from discriminating about which TCP/IP bits they pass around.

Looks like the good guys may win this one, but it's far from a done deal at this point.

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O'Reilly Downtalking Young Americans

Young Americans "have no idea what's going on" because they "get their news from Jon Stewart", although, as this Media Matters post points out, viewers of The Daily Show are consistantly better-informed than viewers of the Factor.

And there's always this hoary old chestnut:

A new study based on a series of seven US polls conducted from January through September of this year reveals that before and after the Iraq war, a majority of Americans have had significant misperceptions and these are highly related to support for the war in Iraq....

Those who primarily watch Fox News are significantly more likely to have misperceptions, while those who primarily listen to NPR or watch PBS are significantly less likely.

The poll didn't include TDS, but it should have.

Bill, the truth is, my generation is too media savvy to be suckered in by your brand of cheap political grandstanding. But by all means, keep alienating us, please. It'll be fun watching your ratings deflate as your audience tunes out (or keels over from old age).

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Bacterial Fuel Cell

Bioengineering is hot. Scientists are looking at how to get bacteria to make electricity, which could open up some very interesting solutions to the 21st Centiry energy crunch.

Bacteria that convert hydrocarbons into power will still vent CO2 of course, but it would be a hell of a lot more efficient than burning the hydrocarbons and trying to capture that heat to boil water to spin a big magnet around to make electricity.

The real mojo would be if someone started engineering a way to get juice from photosynthesis. Biologically-captured solar power is where we get most of our energy (food, oil/coal/natural gas) from anyway. Theoretically it should be possible, but it's a whole different thing to work with plantlife as opposed to bacteria.

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Lost Finale

Two episodes in the torrentfeed. I have not yet watched. Maybe tonight.

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Wohoo

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The Future Is Now

Photo from ColOmbia... creepy. (spelling tip: Yuliya)

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Jung

From the Jung book I'm reading on my subway rides (emphasis mine):

We should expect the doctor of have an infleunce on the patient in every effective psychic treatment: but this influence can only take place when he too is affected by the patient. You can exert no influence if you are not susceptible to influence.

This is a pretty deep thing, and it goes well outside psychotherapy. It's something I wrestled with a lot when I was more regularly into acting and performing. Creating a space of vulnerability on stage was a critical part of the method that I pursued. This involves breaking the fourth wall, bringing the audience into direct human contact with the performer. It's a powerful technique that only works at close-range, but I really enjoyed using it.

This is also something that I have to work on in my personal life. In spite of my gregarious nature, I keep a pretty sizable portion of myself to myself in most situations, or at least immune to external input. That's a limitation, maybe borne from defense (once bitten, etc), that I'd like to work out.

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