informage

I've been suffering from a particular phenonemon recently, whereby just as I'm drifting off to sleep I'll come up with a spectacularly interesting subject to blog about. When I awaken, it has gone, although I still remember the glowing sense of accomplishment that was about to be mine if I'd merely put finger to plastic.

So here are some of the lesser entrants that insist upon keeping hold of my vapid memory:

English is the new French. Spirals are the new triangles. The Streets are wicked. Global phenonemon that Mike Skinner may have become, I feel a special empathy as I grew up nearby (Coventry rather than Birmingham) and also spent my London days in Brixton and environs. Please feel free to request a translation of any particular lyric.

My blog entry below brought criticism upon me from certain quarters. I announced that I smoke marijuana without offering any kind of justification, just throwing it out into the pot (so to speak). Well, within the cultural norms I am most familiar with it almost goes without saying that dagga smoking is wholly acceptable, and its illegality is an anachronism only relevant because of the difficulties involved in obtaining the stuff. I actually resent the idea that I should justify myself every time I mention it. Drawing upon an overused analogy: imagine having to justify not being an alcoholic every time one referred to a nice wine or cocktail.

Coincidentally one of my favourite bloggers, Tim Bray, just posted a thoughtful entry about drugs in Vancouver. Whilst his piece has a wider scope than marijuana issues, along the way he throws out a pleasantly succinct and matter-of-fact pro-legalisation stance:

As for cannabis, just give up. It's just not that damaging (particularly with the modern varieties that reduce the quantity of highly-carcinogenic smoke to nearly nothing), and the notion of a "gateway drug" is just silly, and it's allowing a lot of very evil people to get very rich.

Legalize it, regulate it, collect the tax dollars, and free up the cops to go after the real problem drugs.

Say the 'gg' like you've got a few dusty bits of the leaf stuck in your throat, and you'll have succesfully spoken the indigenous word for the great and sacred weed. You can even read the official website.

Anyhow I've got a big bag of it and in these crazy and depressing times what better way to spend my time than getting very stoned. I mean, the mad bastards are killing journalists now and threatening vengeance upon half the rest of the population of the middle east, in a grim competition to kill them before super-pneumonia gets there. Well, the plants on my balcony are doing great and so I'm all sorted for whatever future is left.

You know I said it was lucky that no digital record remains of Tim, Saj and my failed web experiment 'Carnival'. I lied!

Richard Stallman is one of the most ardent advocates of Free Sofware (also sometimes knows as "open source" although he insists that the two are distinct). He perpetually irritates others in the open source/free software world with his pedantic insistence on his political and ethical principles. Despite this, and the fact that I don't agree with all his positions, I have huge respect for him. I think it is best summed up by the post below by "4of12" posting on Slashdot

I can believe that he does.

I think Richard belongs to the former category of "perceived assholes" rather than the latter.

Yesterday we were sitting having lunch outside Cafe Felice, which incidentally has the best sorvete - ice cream - in Rio. My personal favourite flavour is Cinnamon and Apple - I'd give you the portuguese but I don't recall. "We" is myself and my favourite person Shannon. The food was great. All in all the scenario would have been wonderful if not for the deafening sound and toxic emissions of the garbage truck parked across the street. The silver lining was that this was the first time I'd eaten out in Ipanema and not been able to hear "The Girl from Ipanema". Because of the garbage truck, not the venue's music policy I might add.

In other news a 'carioca' woman was arrested for driving without a crash-helmet. Fair enough you might think, except that she was driving a car.

Photos of my last trip here.

"Google's blind spots obscure a smaller majority of the web than its competitors" - The Guardian

"The significant problems we face cannot be solved at the same level of thinking we were at when we created them." - Mr Einstein

A picture of my beautiful lover Shannon engaged in her favourite activity on the streets of Ipanema, Rio de Janeiro.

I also made a cheesy devotional website for us but don't tell anyone.

In a sad example of jonny-come-lately trend-following I have decided to turn informage.net into my own personal blog where I plan to rant as much or as little as I please. I'm hoping that someone out there will glean enough value to check back from time to time.

The somewhat defunct old informage.net site is still around at http://public.informage.net

I'd like to compare what I'm doing to my good friend Tim Guest's blog at http://www.timguest.net - but this appears to be down at the moment. Get better soon Tim's site!