meta-roj

Scientists Working of [sic] Flexible Armor

Army scientists are working on a liquid body armor for clothing that stays flexible during normal use but can harden to stop a projectile when hit suddenly.

amazing 🙂 army scientists have discovered oobleck.

then again, maybe this is some sort of subsidy program for corn farmers in iowa.

[yeah, that is an apparent typo in the headline… but that’s how it appears in the link]

i hope they can do it… i really, really, do.

(that’s e-billion as in $2,718,281,828…. it’s a nice number, and certainly bolder than my personal favorite, $1,618,033,988).

the “we’re spending $5 billion a month in iraq” figure is being thrown around a lot… and lots of people are thinking about what that money could do…. but one thing i haven’t seen yet is what it could do… in iraq.

according to the cia, the gdp per capita in 2002 was $2400. with just under 25 million iraqi citizens (ok, a few less than that now…) that means the gdp in 2002 was $60 billion. oddly, that works out to about $5 billion a month.

maybe we should’ve just called some underemployed enron negotiators to arrange a leveraged buyout.

some time ago i made a brief mention of the situation in sudan.

a quip is one thing, but it’s important to get off the comfy chair and make a difference once in a while, and Joanne Cipolla Moore is here: passion of the present.

go. do something.

[via joi via jim]

ot really this blog, but another blog in a much brighter place – joi’s decided to re-engage the debate.

disagreements and debates are important – i knew there was a reason i liked that guy, even if he was a little bland for a while (joi wasn’t using his civil rights, either, for a while…) 🙂

teacher

poet

this is going to be funny to a very limited audience, but… why not….

the business model of the hour is “polysocial software” which is the natural evolution of th big rush into “social software.” guaranteed to rake in the big investors, we’re going to leverage it by calling the compny “six together.”

headquarters in salt lake city, of course. send in your resumes now to be part of the core team….

david bowie, quoted in the times

Mash ups were a great appropriation idea just waiting to happen. I first heard of them when 2 many dj’s put out their album a year or so ago and have been following the evolution avidly ever since. Being a hybrid-maker off and on over the years, I’m very comfortable with the idea and have been the subject of quite a few pretty good mash-ups myself.

Visconti and I had an unintentionally Luddite fantasy in the seventies revolving around a plan to write songs in the style of several different artists, The Doors or Mark Bolan etc., and then record some backing tracks in the style of, say Hendrix or the Stones and then I would record the vocal tracks imitating Cliff, Lennon or the Supremes even (with slightly speeded up tape). Shame we never got on with it but you know how those rainy Tuesday afternoon brainstorms go. Nowhere, generally.

it’s been going on for a while now, but if you haven’t been sucked in yet, the contest is here.

too many lawyers in the pot (just try to read the rules for the contest), but bowie can afford them, i guess.

embrace the future, there’s a rich culture to work with, if only you have permission.

the associated press is reporting that an unidentified 15-year-old student in washington (state) has been questioned by secret service agents, and disciplined by the school district (though the nature of the ‘discipline’ has not been made public) for anti-war drawings.

Washington Student Questioned on Artwork

The drawing that drew the most notice showed a man in what appeared to be Middle Eastern-style clothing, holding a rifle. He was also holding a stick with an oversize head of the president on it.

The student said the head was enlarged because it was intended to be an effigy, Cravens said. The caption called for an end to the war in Iraq.

Washington Student Questioned on Artwork

“We involve the police anytime we have a concern,” Prosser Superintendent Ray Tolcacher told the Tri-City Herald newspaper.

Washington Student Questioned on Artwork

Tolcacher insisted it was not a freedom of speech issue, but a concern over the depiction of violence.

i could find no statement regarding a new secret service depiction-of-violence initiative and i’m not sure if depictions of violence fall into the counterfeit-operations duty of the secret service or the protective mission of the secret service.

i didn’t find any recent statements on actual violence either….