Tidbits From The Web #38

Happy Friday the 13th!
Just in time for Valentine's Day...
Ohhh...that is what 3.6 million jobs lost in 13 months looks like...
An awesome hockey goal...
Or this "EA Sports" one even better?
LIFE hosted by Google...
How Obama really feels... (*WARNING EXPLICIT*)
And his dangerous bailout...
A potential hazardous asteroid approaches...
Ziggy Stardust remixed...
David after the dentist remix...
David after the dentist remix part 2...
OK the last one...David after the dentist remix part 3... (*WARNING EXPLICIT*)
Is DTV conversion a conspiracy?
The elevator to space...
Frozen BlackBerry...
Silly rabbit...BlackBerries are for kids!
All Gnus...is good Gnus...is How's Your News?
A tornado is brewing...
Using beer to fuel cars...
It's a small wonder...
Rubik's sphere...
Wormhole found using Google Maps...
New toys from the London Toy Fair...
The eclectic Timothy Leary...
Chocolate covered bacon...
This is why you are fat... (props to cuz Jose + Boris on this find)
Kissed a girl or not...I like Katy Perry...
Curious cow...
Now some of the worst baseball contracts ever...
The real shotgun experience...
All educational about smack...
Breakdown of social networking...
A panoramic view on top of Mount Everest...
Amazing pics of polar bears...
Cookie Monster's got 99 problems... (*WARNING EXPLICIT*)

"The Definition of Determination"

In 1832, he was a 22-year old business failure.

That same year he ran for the legislature and was defeated.

In 1833, he was a business failure once again.

In 1836, he was said to have suffered a nervous breakdown.

In 1838, he lost in an effort to become Speaker of the House
in the State Legislature.

Five years later, he ran for Congress -- again it was in vain.

In 1846, he ran for Congress and won -- only to lose his re-election bid in 1848.

He ran for the Senate in 1854, and lost.

He ran for the Vice-presidential nomination in 1856, and lost that too.

In 1860, he became the 16th President of the United States.

Honest Abe Lincoln

This is Kristos, reminding you to never give up. All of our challenges and apparent failures are just growth opportunities for you to grow, fix yourself and be ready for bigger and better things.

Anne Frank the Writer - An Unfinished Story

"Between the ages of 13 and 15, Anne Frank wrote short stories, fairy tales, essays, and the beginnings of a novel. Five notebooks and more than 300 loose pages, meticulously handwritten during her two years in hiding, survived the war." An Unfinished Story is an online exhibition containing images of these loose pages, notebooks and other artifacts that have been discovered including the only known film footage of this talented girl. Anne is further introduced to you through audio and other visual effects; interviews with her closest surviving relative, her cousin Buddy Elias, and the co-curators of the Anne Frank Museum enhance the personal experience. You'll find web links to other related sites and have an opportunity to share your thoughts on this website and the 'young woman who had great ambition to be a writer and was exploring her craft' whose 'works combine adolescent imagination and playfulness with mature insight and self-awareness.'


Lab on a paper chip











Paper the size of postage stamps inlaid with different patterns of proteins can perform as diagnostic medical devices. By simply adding tape, Harvard University professor George Whitesides and his team have been able to turn their paper tests into 3D devices for more-complicated analysis. Such paper lab-on-a-chip tests may lead to cost-effective, portable, and accurate methods for diagnosing diseases in countries lacking appropriate laboratories.

Full Article






FREEDOM


The earth is the mother of all people, and all people should have equal rights upon it. You might as well expect the rivers to run backward as that any man who was born a free man should be contented when penned up and denied liberty to go where he pleases.

Chief Joseph


Freedom is the right to choose the habits that bind you.

Renate Rubinstein

"A quotation, like a pun, should come unsought, and then be welcomed only for some propriety of felicity justifying the intrusion."
- Robert Chapman

Things We've Learned From The Movies, Part 1...

1. Large, loft-style apartments in New York City are well within the price range of most people whether they are employed or not.

2. At least one of a pair of identical twins is born evil.

3. Should you decide to defuse a bomb, don't worry which wire to cut. You will always choose the right one.

4. Most laptop computers are powerful enough to override the communications system of any invading alien society.

5. It does not matter if you are heavily outnumbered in a fight involving martial arts-your enemies will wait patiently to attack you one by one by dancing around in a threatening manner until you have knocked out their predecessors.

6. When you turn out the light to go to bed, everything in your bedroom will still be clearly visible, just slightly bluish.

7. If you are blonde and pretty, it is possible to become a world expert on nuclear fission at the age of 22.

8. Honest and hard working policemen are traditionally gunned down three days before their retirement.

9. Rather than wasting bullets, megalomaniacs prefer to kill their archenemies using complicated machinery involving fuses, pulley systems, deadly gasses, lasers, and man-eating sharks, which will allow their captives at least 20 minutes to escape.

10. During all police investigations, it will be necessary to visit a strip club at least once.

11. All beds have special L-shaped cover sheets that reach up to the armpit level on a woman but only to waist level on the man lying beside her.

12. All grocery shopping bags contain at least one stick of French bread.

13. It's easy for anyone to land a plane providing there is someone in the control tower to talk you down.

Whiskey & Gunpowder
By Doug Casey
January 20, 2009
Stowe, Vermont, U.S.A.

Foundations of Crisis, Part II: Generations

Generational conflict has been recognized since ancient times. The twist here is the discovery of several things that have previously eluded observers. One is that the well- known conflict between fathers and sons is only half the story; there aren’t just two generational types that alternate (e.g., liberal and conservative), but four. The reason for looking at it this way is that a human life can be conveniently divided into four stages: Childhood, Young Adulthood, Midlife, and Elderhood. Throughout all of history, a long life might be considered to be 80 to 100 years, with each of the four stages equaling a quarter of it.

Just as each person’s life holds four stages of about 20 years each, each generation comprehends a group of people born over about 20 years. Members of a particular generation tend to share values and ways of looking at the world not only because their parents also shared a set of views (which the kids are reacting to), but because every new generation experiences a new set of events in a way unique to them. They hear the same music, see the same events, are exposed to the same books. Members of a generation share a collective persona. There appear to be four distinct archetypal personae that recur throughout American history. And throughout world history as well, although that’s a bit beyond what I hope to explore here.

It also seems, throughout history, that there are periodic crises. About once every century, or about when each of the four generational types has run its course, a cataclysmic event occurs. It generally takes the form of a major war, and it generally catalyzes a whole new epoch for society.

The four mature generations alive today each represent an archetype. Let’s review them from the oldest now living, to the youngest.

Hero Archetype

The “GI” generation, born between 1901 and 1924, includes basically all living people in their mid-70s and older. They grew up and came of age in the midst of the most traumatic years in human history: the 1930s and ‘40s. This was a time of catastrophic financial and economic collapse, world war, political dictatorship, genocide, and virulent ideology, among other unpleasant things; a period of intense turmoil. The times required them to be civic minded, optimistic, regular guys who could be counted on to do the right thing, fit in, and see that everybody got a square deal. As a consequence of what they’ve been through, they tend to be indulgent parents. As kids they’re “good”; as adults they’re selfless, constructive, and communitarian. Hero archetypes encounter a Crisis environment in Young Adulthood; assuming they survive it, the odds are the rest of their lives will be lived in growing economic prosperity, leading to a leisurely retirement.

Artist Archetype

Meanwhile, another generation was being born at the height of the Crisis – something that seems to occur roughly every 80-100 years — from 1925-42. This generation, the “Silent,” watched these titanic events happen but were too young to take part in them. They were relegated to being protected, while trying to be helpful in the limited ways available to them. They’re overprotected as children, when they might be characterized as “placid”; they tend to underprotect their own children as a reaction. As adults they’re sensitive, well-liked, sentimental, and caring.

Prophet Archetype

Next came the group we call the “Boomers,” born from 1943 to 1960. This was the first generation born after the Crisis was over, and they grew up in an environment where their parents (mostly GIs and early cohort Silents) felt obligated to protect them from all the trauma of the preceding years and were desirous of giving them all the things they never had. As kids they’re seen as “spirited.” Later in life, they tend to be narcissistic, presumptuous, self-righteous, and ruthless. Born after a Crisis, their Childhood years coincide with a rebirth of society, and their Elderhood coincides with another Crisis. More on them below.

Nomad Archetype

The fourth generational type is represented by today’s “Generation X,” born 1961-81, during what might be called an Awakening period when the Boomers were in the limelight. As a consequence, they were overlooked and a bit abandoned. Their reputation as kids can be summed up as “bad.” They’re oriented toward survival, which is partially a result of their being underprotected as children. When they become parents, they react and become overprotective. They tend to be savvy, practical, tough, and amoral.

The kids born between 1982 and perhaps 2002 should be another Hero archetype. My own experience with them is that they’re shaping up that way. Represented by clean-cut, straight-arrow Power Rangers. Quite a reaction to the sewer-dwelling Mutant Ninja Turtles that were analogs for the previous generation. They’re “can do” kids, programmed to do the right thing in a smoke-free, drug-free, eco-sensitive, politically correct world. Like all Hero types, they respect their elders, do what they’re told without much questioning authority. That’s just the type of person you want to have fighting a war for you, and that’s probably just what they’ll wind up doing. Just like the last Hero types, the GIs. (Iraq was first. Iran next? Or will it be Saudi Arabia?)

It’s risky to characterize everyone born in a certain time frame as sharing a persona; after all, people are individuals, not ants or atoms, each like the other. But it’s really no different than characterizing people by the country they’re from. There’s no question in my mind that people share characteristics by virtue of the milieu in which they live, and that’s true of time as well as geography. Take a look at the people you know by age groups, and see if they don’t roughly fit the brief descriptions.

The interesting thing is that through about 400 years of American history, it’s possible to see these generational types repeating themselves. It’s not an accident. The characteristics of each type shape the next generation, as well as current events. And events leave a further imprint on all of them.

Making an Example of the Boomers

Just as every generation has its own persona, the character of each generation evolves as it moves through life. The Boomers are perhaps the most relevant example of this. First they were Mouseketeers and Beaver Cleaver clones. Who could have guessed they would mutate into Hippies and even Yippies as they reached Young Adulthood, reacting against everything they’d grown up with, everything their parents worked so hard to give them.

They came of age during a period that might be called an Awakening, and it’s recurred on schedule five times so far in American history. Awakenings are times of religious and moral ferment, when the youth tend to challenge prevailing cultural values pretty much across the board. Young adults were into New Age things this time around, in the 1960s and ‘70s. At the time it seemed utterly shocking and completely new, but that was only because nobody then alive had seen the previous Utopian Awakening in the 1830s and ‘40s, the Pietist Awakening of the 1740s and ‘50s, the Puritan Awakening of the 1630s and ‘40s, or the Protestant Reformation of the 1530s and ‘40s.

Like all the generations before them that grew up in similar times, they eventually put away the things of their youth. But who guessed that their next mutation would be into Yuppies, whose motto was not “Peace and Love” or “Revolution for the Hell of It,” but “Shop Till You Drop” and “He Who Dies with the Most Toys Wins” as they moved into midlife.

But even now the acquisitive mania that characterized the ‘80s is ebbing, now that the first cohorts of Boomers are crossing over 50. You can already see the signs of their next stage of evolution, in the judgmental behavior of people like William Bennett (George Bush) and Dan Quayle (Ann Coulter) on the “right,” and Al Gore and Hillary Clinton on the “left.” They did sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll in the ‘60s. They believe they’ve fought the war of good against evil in both Vietnam and the segregated lunch counters of the South. They know they were the first generation to have traveled widely thanks to the jet, to have been brought up by television, and had the telephone as a given. They’ve been there, done that, and now that they’re getting older, they’re going to make sure that everyone else benefits from their wisdom — like it or not.

The Boomers are an archetypal Prophet generation, a type born after a secular crisis, just in time to create another one. Get the image of a grim elder, with a well-defined vision of what’s right and wrong, calling down wrath, and laying down the law for a troubled nation in chaotic times. That’s the type of person who tends to lead countries into wars, as well as through them. Interestingly, the Boomers in America have their counterparts abroad today, especially in China, where they grew up during the Cultural Revolution. Two ideologically driven, righteous groups running two such powerful and alien cultures is almost a guaranteed formula for a millennial-sized crisis. Which should appear, coincidentally, sometime shortly after the millennium. (We’re right on schedule.)

Peace, love and happiness...until next time...