Einstien's was Nationless

"My passionate sense of social justice and social responsibility has always contrasted oddly with my pronounced lack of need for direct contact with other human beings and human communities. I am truly a 'lone traveler' and have never belonged to my country, my home, my friends, or even my immediate family, with my whole heart; in the face of all these ties, I have never lost a sense of distance and a need for solitude..."

~ Albert Einstien

<Einstien's Essay on Life>

San Francisco superballs

<really-slow-loading-but-worth-it-video>

San Francisco in Jello

<link>

Inaction is a weapon of mass destruction

Whether long range weapon or suicide bomber
Wicked mind is a weapon of mass destruction
Whether you're soar away sun or BBC 1
Misinformation is a weapon of mass destruc
You could a Caucasian or a poor Asian
Racism is a weapon of mass destruction
Whether inflation or globalization
Fear is a weapon of mass destruction

My dad came into my room holding his hat
I knew he was leaving,
he sat on my bed told me some facts, son.
I have a duty, calling on me
You and your sister be brave my little soldier
And don't forget all I told ya
Your the mister of the house now remember this
And when you wake up in the morning give ya momma a kiss
Then I had to say goodbye

In the morning woke momma with a kiss on each eyelid,
Even though I'm only a kid
Certain things can't be hid
Momma grabbed me
Held me like I was made of gold
But left her inner stories untold
I said, momma it will be alright
When daddy comes home, tonight

[CHORUS]

Whether long range weapon or suicide bomber
Wicked mind is a weapon of mass destruction
Whether you're soar away sun or BBC 1
Misinformation is a weapon of mass destruc
You could a Caucasian or a poor Asian
Racism is a weapon of mass destruction
Whether inflation or globalization
Fear is a weapon of mass destruction

Whether Halliburton or Enron or anyone
Greed is a weapon of mass destruction

We need to find courage, overcome
Inaction is a weapon of mass destruction
Inaction is a weapon of mass destruction
Inaction is a weapon of mass destruction

The skin under my chin
is exploding, again.
I'm getting stress from some other children.
I'm holding it in, we taking sides, like a politian
an if I get friction we get to fightin.
I defend my dad he's the best of all men
an whatever he's doin he's doin the right thing.
Its frightenin but it makes me mad, why do all
of these people seem to hate my dad?
an if that ain't enough, now I've got these spots.
I go to sleep every night with my stomach in knots.
and whats more I can hear Mama next door
explore the radio for reports of war.
and all we ever seem to do is hide the tears,
seems Daddy been gone for years.
But he was right, now I'm geared up for the fight
an he would be proud of me if Daddy came home tonight.

[CHORUS]

My story stops here, lets be clear
This scenario is happening everywhere
And you ain't going to nirvana or farvana
You're coming right back here to live out your karma
With even more drama than previously, seriously
Just how many centuries have we been
waiting for someone else to make us free
And we refuse to see
That people overseas suffer just like we
Bad leadership and ego's unfettered and free
Who feed on the people they're supposed to lead
I don't need good people to pray and wait
For the lord to make it all straight
There's only now, do it right.
Cos I don't want your daddy, leaving home tonight

~ 'Mass Destruction' by Faithless
<the video>

InterestMap, A Cultural Fabric of Identities & Interests

Over recent years, social network communities (e.g. inter alia, friendster, contact lists, weblog communities, newsgroups) have been steadily building up in the online world. There is now sufficient critical mass of such infrastructure to postulate things about identity and the Self, as reflected in the social fabric of the online world.

How might we sense identity from the online social fabric? Semiotician Jacques Lacan has argued that words and concepts carry meaning primarily by what they signify. Roland Barthes proposed that the particular mappings between signifier and signified originate in cultural systems of semiology. Such cultural systems of signs have grown in importance as mass consumption has replaced subjective culture as the dominant contemporary cultural paradigm. Because the signifying value of possessions associated with the Self serves an important social function in signalling identity, it is possible to view identity and the Self as a collection of consumption decisions (cf. Social Constructionist Theory of Identity).

InterestMap mines online social network communities to create a rich influence network of interests and subcultures. Some of the interests represented in the network are, inter alia, television and films, foods, geographies, music, sports, hobbies, activities, objects, and people. The strength of connections between interests are learned from the digestion of on the order of one hundred thousand user profiles from online social networks. For example, a person who likes X may also mention Y as an interest on her homepage. Identity and tastes emerge as patterns of intersection on InterestMap.

by Hugo Lui and Pattie Maes

<movie>
<link>

fourteen years

So I turned twenty-five the other day and the sudden realization came to me that I only have five more years left to take over the world. No, wait, you don’t understand. I’ve been trying since I was eleven and now time is really running out. Cause, frankly, if you don’t achieve world domination by thirty you might as well give up. In fact, right about now I’m getting pretty desperate. I’d even settle for partial world domination. Perhaps even a single continent would suffice.

You see, its not that I’m being arrogant or anything. It’s a matter of childhood dreams. When I was young I always imagined being something truly exceptional at a global level. It seemed clear that I deserved world recognition and all I had to do was do something amazing to start people noticing. So the evident thing to do was to get into the Guinness Book of World Records. Many an evening was filled trying to stuff as many gobstoppers in my mouth as possible, or standing on my head for hours (or minutes – logic says minutes but my memory says hours). But I never did becoming a ninja, or a robot. No radioactive spiders ever bit me. My great novel remained unspellchecked and unfinished (I had a tendency, even then, to make up words and write without looking at the screen). But I knew, as I know now, all these things were merely setbacks. My Wiley E. Coyote mind still kept the heart of the idea beating. The roadrunner could be, nay would be, caught. Inside the eleven year old inside me stands still in a lit doorway all ashadowed. One day… One day my lovelies. All your bases shall be mine.

~ riaz

plotting...

Inside the British Indian Mind

Faulty Multi-Culturalism

As I entered the Barbershop at Brudenell Road at Headingley on a quiet Sunday morning, the last thing I wanted was anything or anyone to disturb my piece of mind. Things went as per plan and my hairdresser was about to finish his job when a group of young men entered the shop wanting to get done what I was just about to finish. My barber was chatting nineteen to the dozen with me and I was constantly reminding him that I didn’t have much to say as I was only three months old in England. The conversation revolved around his curiosity to know if I was enjoying my stay in the UK. <read on...>

- submitted by Nirali

Chris Jordan

Chris Jordan likes to take photographs of garbage dumps.
It often ends up looking like art though. ; )

<dirty link>

Post Secret

PostSecret is an ongoing community art project where people mail-in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard.

<secrets revealed>

Chowk Attack

Our very own miss Aruna Rangarajan has published something over at chowk.
<go over and check it out>

~r