senatorhung's pad
ramblings of an information troubleshooter

thanksgiving feast

• link of the day: bill fleckenstein comments about how the housing bubble is really just a credit bubble created by the u.s. fed's reluctance to impose appropriate lending restraints on the banks:

  That house prices have gone up a
  lot is not in itself the problem.
  If they'd risen in an environment
  where folks were behaving prudently
  with their financing arrangements
  (i.e., putting 5%, 10%, 15% or 20% 
  down and taking out 10-, 15- or 
  30-year mortgages), we might be 
  set up for a dip in prices, as has
  occurred from time to time.  But
  that's not what we'll witness, 
  thanks to the complete abdication
  of responsibility on the part of
  financial institutions, where 
  seeminly no loan was turned down.
  Thus, those of us who talk about
  a housing bubble are really 
  referring to a credit bubble.
  

culture is in the remix

• link of the day: a 2-parter blog posting with extended comments about copyright and creativity from zephoria.org.
  
  part 1: when media becomes culture. i found barb dybwad's comment to be very intriguing:

  The proliferation of things like the 
  ringtone mashups reveals that what
  the once-passive masses are 
  discovering is precisely the natural 
  joy of creation.  It's more fun, and 
  more emotionally/spiritually 
  satisfying, to make your own stuff 
  (and share it with your friends) than 
  simply passively consume culture that 
  is handed down.  The RIAA knows only 
  how to make a business model out of 
  the latter -- but they'd better figure 
  out right quick how to make a business 
  model out of the former if they wish to
  retain any semblance of relevancy in 
  the future.  
  
  CC art embodies the natural joy of 
  creation and sharing far more than it 
  embodies any sort of business model.  
  I think it would be a shame if CC/EFF 
  focused on the output of mainstream 
  artists whatsoever -- who cares about 
  the mainstream artists?  That's the 
  point.  In the same way that blog 
  world has subverted MSM not by 
  replacing it, but by creating an 
  alternative model in which the A-list 
  doesn't *have* to matter -- cultural 
  transmissions can have their value in 
  their local domains without achieving 
  some kind of global recognition -- CC 
  art is creating a parallel world in 
  which actual, reachable individuals (as 
  opposed to icons) are creating and 
  sharing art and finding cultural  
  currency in their local domains, with 
  some of that art reaching wider 
  audiences because of its appeal and its 
  quality moreso than any predetermined 
  structure of fame iconography.
  

  part 2: remix as active consumption

  From clothing to songs, we consume and 
  we connect it to our lives.  We've 
  always done this with media.  We've 
  made collages out of magazines, we've 
  put together pieces of songs in a new 
  sequence for our friends.  Of course, 
  now, the cultural bits that we consume 
  are more accessible Lego blocks.  It's 
  possible to play with them in new ways. 
  And there are so many more choices that 
  we can be really creative with that 
  play.  We can consume culture in new 
  ways and what we shit out in that 
  process actually gets to be digested 
  and mixed together with other bits of 
  culture that we consumed.
  

broomball free-for-all

constantly challenging

delusions of glory

• link of the day: a very persuasive ad for condoms. :)

a sporting saturday

rough final placings:


• 1. Charles
• 1. Patrick (shorter-stack)
• 3. Renee
• 4. Kent
• 5. Todd
• 6. Shane
• 7. Darryl
• 8. Chris



• 9. Ma
• 9. Me (sidepot)
• 11.-15.: J.D., Alex, Krista, Bernie, Gordon
• 16. ??
• 17. Darcy
• 18. Vinnie