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Strange thoughts
Feb. 11th, 2005 12:39 amSome interesting things are always out there. Some of the most interesting things are not facts nor figures, but thoughts. And some of those thoughts are mighty strange, indeed. Example one - Destiny. It all makes sense, in a twisted way.
But strange thoughts are not strictly the domain of the historian. Example Two - Converting the Penguins. Perhaps the Kiwis resisted a bit too much? Or was it more like Example Three - Hotel California, but inverted?
Strange thoughts often bring about strange actions. They can be destructive, like Example Five - Bad pack up lines, satirical, like Example Six - Students for an Orwellian Society, or creative, like Example Seven - Putting out the fire with snowballs.
Perhaps the greatest producers of strange thoughts are morons. Either directly, or by thinking about what morons do, a large amount of strange thought happens. Especially if you think that "strange" is anything the resembles a differing opinion. Plusungood.
And the MPAA's cracking down, too. Torrent tracker sites are indeed falling to the litigative giants. Loki torrent now sports the latest MPAA advertisement. I extend to them the same logic I do to the RIAA - you're looking in the wrong place. Rather than crack down on pirates indiscriminately, why not find out (and actually listen) why people are doing it? Is it because they think you're charging them large fees and then providing sub-quality productions in return? Why would anyone willingly spend $9 (U.S.) to see a movie that sucks? Why would they pay $14-$19 (U.S.) to purchase an album that they knew only had one good track? People complain about this all the time - price high, quality low, be it movies, music, or software. If you improve quality so that people feel that price is justified, they buy. If you lower price to match quality, they know it's trash, but it's cheap trash, and so they might buy. If you figure out why they pirate and then fix it, you might find that the instances of piracy drop. Look at iTunes's success - legal tunes, individually wrapped, at a price that most people find acceptable. They buy, rather than pirate.
Zen is strange by itself. I present, then, a koan on political correctness. It makes eerie sense while making little sense at all.
And then there's Pocky. Enough said about that.
If you didn't get the edit before, the writer of the brilliant piece I mentioned before is![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
przxqgl. While I'm not sure I can admit Tina Chopp is God, there's plenty there, and around the site, to entertain and fill you with strange thoughts. (I am a Terrorist, he says, and as much as the Ministry of Thought would condemn it, I find that in certain cases, being the Terrorist has advantages.)
And that marks a transition into one of my own strange thoughts - while we're at risk for M.A.D. if everyone just decides to ignore the consequences and launch, I find that the potential for a terrorist attack using high-destructive materials to be less than what Big Brother wants me to believe. My rationale goes in this semi-logical order (meaning, I'm sure there are holes somewhere):
1) Large-scale attacks are designed around causing large amounts of casualties.
2) Causing large amounts of casualties draws attention - of the bad kind. The larger your injured and dead count, the more likely it is that someone will have the persistence to hunt you down and kill/try you in court.
3) Attention is bad, because it prevents further planning and execution of more activities.
4) Thus, keep the body counts down, while still inspiring fear.
5) Nuclear, chemical, and other highly-destructive weapons are designed to cause a lot of casualties. From 2, 3, and 4 above, using these kinds of devices attracts unwanted attention, adds to the risk of capture, and forces delays in carrying out the next operation.
6) There is a strong incentive not to use highly-destructive materials in terrorist attacks.
Now, when I say a large amount of casualties, I mean by percentage of population - Sept. 11 caused a large amount of casualties numerically, but percentage-wise in the population, it was fairly small. Something like a nuke would be much deadlier, and claim a larger percentage of the population. This would galvanize the resolve to find and destroy you much more. So carbombs, regular bombs, pipe bombs, etc. are good - small body counts. Inspires fear without actually forcing someone's hand.
I don't know if there's a hole in the logic somewhere, but it makes sense to me.
Anyway, to bed. I still have much to do in striking out at my midterm Genji paper.
But strange thoughts are not strictly the domain of the historian. Example Two - Converting the Penguins. Perhaps the Kiwis resisted a bit too much? Or was it more like Example Three - Hotel California, but inverted?
Strange thoughts often bring about strange actions. They can be destructive, like Example Five - Bad pack up lines, satirical, like Example Six - Students for an Orwellian Society, or creative, like Example Seven - Putting out the fire with snowballs.
Perhaps the greatest producers of strange thoughts are morons. Either directly, or by thinking about what morons do, a large amount of strange thought happens. Especially if you think that "strange" is anything the resembles a differing opinion. Plusungood.
And the MPAA's cracking down, too. Torrent tracker sites are indeed falling to the litigative giants. Loki torrent now sports the latest MPAA advertisement. I extend to them the same logic I do to the RIAA - you're looking in the wrong place. Rather than crack down on pirates indiscriminately, why not find out (and actually listen) why people are doing it? Is it because they think you're charging them large fees and then providing sub-quality productions in return? Why would anyone willingly spend $9 (U.S.) to see a movie that sucks? Why would they pay $14-$19 (U.S.) to purchase an album that they knew only had one good track? People complain about this all the time - price high, quality low, be it movies, music, or software. If you improve quality so that people feel that price is justified, they buy. If you lower price to match quality, they know it's trash, but it's cheap trash, and so they might buy. If you figure out why they pirate and then fix it, you might find that the instances of piracy drop. Look at iTunes's success - legal tunes, individually wrapped, at a price that most people find acceptable. They buy, rather than pirate.
Zen is strange by itself. I present, then, a koan on political correctness. It makes eerie sense while making little sense at all.
And then there's Pocky. Enough said about that.
If you didn't get the edit before, the writer of the brilliant piece I mentioned before is
przxqgl. While I'm not sure I can admit Tina Chopp is God, there's plenty there, and around the site, to entertain and fill you with strange thoughts. (I am a Terrorist, he says, and as much as the Ministry of Thought would condemn it, I find that in certain cases, being the Terrorist has advantages.)And that marks a transition into one of my own strange thoughts - while we're at risk for M.A.D. if everyone just decides to ignore the consequences and launch, I find that the potential for a terrorist attack using high-destructive materials to be less than what Big Brother wants me to believe. My rationale goes in this semi-logical order (meaning, I'm sure there are holes somewhere):
1) Large-scale attacks are designed around causing large amounts of casualties.
2) Causing large amounts of casualties draws attention - of the bad kind. The larger your injured and dead count, the more likely it is that someone will have the persistence to hunt you down and kill/try you in court.
3) Attention is bad, because it prevents further planning and execution of more activities.
4) Thus, keep the body counts down, while still inspiring fear.
5) Nuclear, chemical, and other highly-destructive weapons are designed to cause a lot of casualties. From 2, 3, and 4 above, using these kinds of devices attracts unwanted attention, adds to the risk of capture, and forces delays in carrying out the next operation.
6) There is a strong incentive not to use highly-destructive materials in terrorist attacks.
Now, when I say a large amount of casualties, I mean by percentage of population - Sept. 11 caused a large amount of casualties numerically, but percentage-wise in the population, it was fairly small. Something like a nuke would be much deadlier, and claim a larger percentage of the population. This would galvanize the resolve to find and destroy you much more. So carbombs, regular bombs, pipe bombs, etc. are good - small body counts. Inspires fear without actually forcing someone's hand.
I don't know if there's a hole in the logic somewhere, but it makes sense to me.
Anyway, to bed. I still have much to do in striking out at my midterm Genji paper.
