Life Takes Visa?

Now, this one is interesting. Recently, Visa began another in their ill-fated 'Life Takes Visa' advertisement series. It's a number of segments depicting how everything flows in perfect harmony and a bliss of spending while Visa cards are thrown around faster than Bicycles at a Texas Hold 'Em tournament. Suddenly, some poor inconsiderate soul uses cash - in the twenty-first century, cash! - and everything comes to a grinding halt as the cashier (irony) has to stop and make change for the money.

Well, I happen to have a Visa. (In fact, I don't know why they bother, as you've got a 50/50 of landing with a Visa and not really any choice in the matter, depending on your bank.) And let me tell you, these commercials are a perfect depiction of reality. I waltz right up to the counter, whip the joyous piece of plastic through the reader...

... what do you mean, "Card declined?"

Swipe again. This time, it stops and really thinks about whether or not it's wise to irritate me any further. Then it apparently decides the laughs are worth it. A third pass through, and it finally works. So now I just have to pick up my stuff and go...

Oh. Right. I have to sign the paper slip. Not that anyone will ever check it. Not that I could ever use it as proof that I didn't make a purchase on the card, should someone ever try to forge it. But it's still required.

Wow. Talk about fast. It only took me four times longer than if I'd just handed over cash. (As opposed to the twice as long it usually takes.) Color me unimpressed. Oh well, at least my Visa can't be stolen without even being touched. Yet.

n0 ntspk 4 u [Netspeak]

So, I'm browsing the internet at my normal cruising speed of just a little slower than light, when I run across this little gem that brings me to a screeching halt:

YO man, wts hapenin?, am kool tho dude. myt be hookin up Thorpe Park or Alton Towers mission soon, lemme kno wot u tink, l8rz bruv

My heart started pounding. I read over the letters again and again, trying to decipher their meaning. The more I read, the more I came to realize that I was staring at something of incredible consequence, something that would shake the world to it's very foundations. I started scrambling around, looking for the telephone. SETI needed to know that I had just found evidence of alien intelligence, not in the stars but in our very own communcation networks!

But then, I started to think (a very dangerous passtime, I know) and I realized that I might need some evidence. Quickly, I asked my good buddy google about this extraodinary event. Imagine my disappointment, then, to discover that I had merely found the picasso movement of written text. No dramatic phone calls. No world-wide press conferences. No marble statue on the white-house lawn. No streaming webcasts of my nobel prize.

That ticked me off. I had wasted fully 20 minutes of valuable surfing time. But then I made the second mistake (the first being that I had actually thought that could happen): I tried to decipher it again. If I squint, select the text, tilt the monitor 17 degrees clockwise, and do a head stand, I can almost see something that might vaugely resemble english, in the way that a pineapple vaugely resembles a palm tree. Did I say palm tree? I meant stunning Manhattan cityscape, because it doesn't look a thing like what it's supposed to be.

After consulting a netspeak dictionary, I finally found what is, nearest I can tell, a rough literal translation:

Hello male, what is happening? I am cold. Male. Might be hooking up Thorpe Park or Alton Towers mission soon, let me know what you think. Laters brother.

And I can't help but wonder what has gone wrong. I know I'm neither the first, last, nor most qualified to comment on this, but something about this is just plain wrong. It represents a fundamental deterioration of human communication based around minimizing required keystrokes rather than imparting information. In addition, 'male' is used twice, once as a stand-alone sentance. (Shall we speculate as to the gender of the writer?) Further, it's just bad taste. Personally, I attribute this to stingy old english teachers with rulers to smack kids on the hands, followed by the college equivalent who think 'classic' is synonomous with 'so boring it never sold a copy and was all that was therefore left for archeologists to find'. Who would want to write properly after that?

To be fair, there are times it's okay. For instance, most text-messaging phones are too cumbersome for correct grammar and full spelling. During games, one can't stop to make fully-formed sentances while aiming for a headshot. And just like the professional world, any site/community/forum is entitled to some amount of local jargon like acronyms or terminology.
But to abbreviate 'you' to 'u'? That's intolerable. It takes two additional keystrokes, and you can't be bothered to that? What makes you think my time is less valuable than yours, such that I should have to spend time decrypting what you wrote because you were too lazy to type a few extra keys? It's not as if typing lessons aren't available for free on the internet.

But is it really laziness? Perhaps the aliens really are at work, producing strange glyphs at the hands of the typers? I have to wonder, but now we get on the shaky ground of personal testimony, right up there with all the people who claim to be abducted by Elvis or whatever. Clearly, that isn't even in the same ZIP code as actual text fragments as far as credibility. Such a shame, too, as the only plausible explanation would be facilitation of a massive invasion through increasing the general stupidity index. Alas, my days of SETI fame will have to wait until I find something more concrete....

Illuminati Alive and Well?

Don't let the title of this article mislead you, I'm not going to really address that question. No, this is more about a video I found on Google Video [Video] that tries to do just that, and fails miserably. Initially, I wasn't going to comment on it, but it just begs for a response, so I guess I'll touch on a few of the things I found wrong with it. Consider this a 'viewing guide'.

First off, if you have no clue what the Illuminati are (or supposedly are), then you might want to have a look at the Wikipedia entry, [Article] which gives a good factual representation of what's known (and some of the speculation). And now, on with the corrections:

[0:38]
"Kennedy, killed at the apex of a pyramid without a capstone from a bird's-eye view"
The film quickly clarifies the cryptic statement with a roadmap of the spot where JFK was shot. It shows (gasp) a triangle. There's only how many triangle intersections in this world? What are the odds? Stretching it a bit thin, aren't we?

[1:11]
Now we're treated to a side-by-side comparison of the two symbol-circles on the dollar, overlaid with the masonic square and compass. Okay, I'll buy that it has something to do with the pyramid. Why not? The Masonic lodge was around at that time, and influential. But the shield of the United States? The lines happen to cross on occasion, and are symmetric. I could make similar comparisions with just about any symbol of the right size and circular layout.

[1:16]
Ah, the all-seeing eye. While I'll admit that it's presence on our currency is strange, the rest of the images presented are utter rubbish, at least from the standpoint of supporting the conclusions of the video. Eyes are common in depictions simply because they're a common feature of human anatomy, and one that our visual-based impressions tend to center on. So yes, it crops up in all of those places. Further, visual inspection is almost universally associated with vigilance and observation (for obvious reasons), so it's little wonder it should show up in media trademarks. Their business is in observation. Get a grip.

[1:32]
"Sacred geometry is their language"
And now we're barraged with images of geometry taken out of context. Okay, let me try to get down to the point behind this:
No secret organization owns 60, 105, and 120 degree angles. They occur because of geometric principles, and they're pleasing to the eye. They are simple mathematical truths that recurr because they fundamental relationships of geometry. As for the flower of life, that pattern has some meaning to it. But nowhere does the video do anything other than show that it occurs sometimes in deocrative architecture. So I guess the illuminati are trying to overrun Martha Stewart now?

[2:08]
Again, let me re-iterate: no one owns simple geometric symbols. They've been rediscovered and reused so many times that they don't have 'one meaning' anymore.

[2:20]
More 'hidden geometry' (see above), crop circles (which are known hoaxes), the drawings of DaVinci (who studied geometry because it was mathematical defined truth), various pyramids (including the 'illuminati online' logo ... real subtle) (and what did pyramids have to do with an organization that didn't even exist in egyptian times?), towers, fractals, geodesic spheres, etc etc.

Okay, now let's get down to buildings. The recurring theme of towers in buildings (including pyramids) is simple. Gravity pulls things down, so we feel a measure of power (including symbolic and economic power) when we build something that defies that. The taller, the more defiant of nature and the more powerful the impression. That's why towers have been built (and destroyed) throughout history. It's a very simple psychological symbolism that is universal to human existence because gravity is ever-present on our planet. Further, pyramids are a very stable geometric configuration. One of the reasons they're cropping up again in some modern architectures is that they're remarkable resistant to things like earthquake damage and won't collapse easily (like the WTC did). From a practical standpoint, that makes them a good choice.

[3:23]
The axe in a bundle of sticks. Oh yes, anything that displays this symbols is automatically fascist, just because Mussolini used it in his flag. Nevermind that it was already a well-established symbol dating back to Roman times meaning strength in unity. Why oh why would we ever chose something like that for our United States?

[3:52]
It's the Lady Freedom, not Persephone. Geez, if you'd spent as much time fact-checking as you did putting this movie together, you wouldn't have even started. If I can find it in five minutes with Google, the maker of this film has no excuse whatsoever.

[4:16]
Earth to conspiracy theorist: the upside down cross is because Saint Peter felt himself unworthy to be killed in the same manner as Jesus, and requested that it be upside-down, according to Church legend. (Whether it's actually true or not is uncertain, but that's the symbolism.)

[5:00]
Fact 1 is a consequence of maintaining military superiority. It's not like anyone could really afford the stuff anyway until the military is done playing with it. Fact 2... Reality check, please? I am not going to believe it just because some crackpot video says it with no citation. Fact 3: what they don't tell you is that the Tesla coil plants never made it because of the horrendous noise that they produced, the hundred-foot-long sparks they would have made (like a sustained lightning bolt) and the comparatively short range which would have forced placement in the middle of a city. It's very neat, to be sure, but it's unsafe in practical terms. Fact 4: I'll believe it when I see a source, and not before.
(Note: feel free to check me if you want. I'm not citing because most of this stuff is trivial to check for yourself or self-evidently wrong.)

[5:30]
Some footage of a supposed flying saucer at the WTC. Grainy footage, bad acting... hoax anyone?

[6:16]
Drag the bar back and watch that again. This time, keep in mind these things:
1) A 747 with wings has lift
2) A 747 without wings does not have lift
3) The body of the airplane is not going to assume the same speed as the debris it knocks clear
Glides in, smacks out debris, falls in a parabolic arc as described by Newtonian physics. Yet again, someone didn't do their homework...

[6:29]
...
Did you even look at that photo before you pasted it in?

[6:35]
Random stuff thrown in for good measure, and quasi-matrix conclusion slides. Don't bother reading them, you're not missing anything.

Thankfully, they were at least smart enough to not include 'credits'. I really don't want to know who's bright idea that was. The thing I found most disturbing about this video is that it actually made it into the popular category. Next time, try actually researching your facts. Really, with the internet at your disposal, you have no excuse.

The New Art Critique

I feel inspired, ever since reading the story of a twelve-year-old boy who made a mark on the art world to share his views... literally. [Article 1] [Article 2] Some might view this as offensive to art in general. But those of us who actually have an idea of what art should really be find (in general) art upwards of $1 million to be an offense to human dignity anyway, so what could it hurt?

Indeed, I think this could be the start of a revolutionary new form of art critique. Applying internet methods to museums, we could start handing out packs of Wrigley's at the door. If you don't like a piece of art, you stick the gum on it and move on. At the end of the day, pieces completely covered are removed and fresh art brought in to replace it. After a certain amount of survival time, the art is then and only then promoted to a real gallery where it is lovingly restored from all of the sticky comments.

But not to fear: the high-art class will still remain. For those who simply have to leave their mark on the art world while simultaneously letting everyone else know how filthy rich they are, we'll create little pins that can be used to skewer the gum, each pin having a little flag that bears the name of the person who leaves it. You could make them in all kinds of precious metals: silver, gold, platinum, something for every pocketbook. Then you sell them (with customization) at about a dozen for the gross national product of Kenya.

But that's not all: you need to get this system entrenched. So we'll obviously have to get this on Oprah. Once it has the Winfrey seal of approval, no one would dare refute it, and it will be established as an American tradition. I think it would help improve the ailing standards of today, and put the power of veto back where it belongs, with the people.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have a patent to file...