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Culturejamming
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Edited
by Chris Zahn
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JAPANESE TV UPDATE SURVIVOR might be all the rage on American TV now but the Japanese gameshow TAKESHI'S CASTLE makes those rat-eating losers look as dangerous as the cast of Sesame Street. Japanese gameshows are notorious for having its contestants withstand painful and humiliating torture for awards that would barely cut the mustard as consolation prizes on The Price Is Right. If you're able to hold down the five pounds of raw octopus, keep from wetting your pants after downing a half-dozen beers, and make it through the gauntlet of live snakes, your reward is a big, fat nothing if you lose your nerve while trapped half-naked in the freezing cold glass box. On one episode of Takeshi's Castle, contestants scaled walls while dodging boulders and leapt across booby-trapped ponds. http://www.fortunecity.com/tatooine/picard/444/ FUJI TV SHUTS DOWN IRON CHEF FANSITES Fuji Television has smacked every fansite of the Japanese food-fighting show, Iron Chef, with a cease and desist order. Since June, IronChef.com, IronChef.net and every other fansite of any merit has been ordered to remove all Fuji-owned IC graphics and sound (though none of these sites are for-profit). It seems that rather than embrace the show's growing (and somewhat fanatic) Internet fanbase, Fuji is hoping to alienate and disillusion it. TOTALLY ABSURD INVENTIONS Wanna know more about.......
Toilet landing lights
It's all here at: BE ALL YOU CAN BE If you read Soldier of Fortune magazine or are just one of these Iron John executive types looking for a more intense "leadership skills" training experience than a coal-walking weekend with Tony Robbins, chances are you'll love the TEAM DELTA POW Interrogation Resistance Program. For just $825 each, this eastern Pennsylvania boot camp provides a realistic military interrogation experience for surviving behind enemy lines. So were basically talking about a bunch of grown men playing expensive war games in the woods. If you thought paintball was for idiots then this looks like a meeting for ASSHOLES ANONYMOUS. During the program participants: get little or no sleep; are extremely uncomfortable; are under great emotional and physical stress; and are pushed to their individual physical and psychological limits. Interrogation techniques are both mental/psychological and physical. The primary push for information is psychological. Physical techniques (pain) are employed as required, but are not the major focus of the interrogation experience. While painful, physical techniques do no harm. Each prisoner controls his/her exposure to physical techniques. The less a prisoner cooperates with the interrogators and the guards, the more “pain compliance” that prisoner can expect. I ROBOT The IS Robotics lab is one of the country's leading developers of surveillance robots. Whether its to deploy them under the arctic ice caps, walk them through a field of land mines or handle hazardous nuclear waste-these bots are doing nasty grunt work for the US government. Contestational Robotics, aka "Robotic Objectors," inverts the traditional relationship between robots and authoritarian power structures by developing robots to meet thee needs and budgets of culturally resistant forces. The two robotic objectors under development: Little Brother: a propaganda robot which distributes subersive literature and propaganda by capitalizing on the aesthetics of cuteness.
Realvideo: GraffitiWriter: a tele-operated robot which employs a custom built array of spray cans to write linear text messages on the ground at a rate of 10 miles per hour. Realvideo: http://www.appliedautonomy.com/video/IAA_28K.ram WEIRD ETCHES IN THE OUTGROOVES Found more bizarre words and messages etched into the outgrooves of old vinyl records. Got any cool ones? Send 'em in.......
Black Flag - Family Man
Camper Van Beethoven - Camper Van Beethoven
They Might Be Giants - Lincoln
Sonic Youth - Daydream Nation BLINDED BY THE LIGHT The US Navy's new submarine defense system is killing whales, dolphins, and even humans who are in surrounding waters when the Navy tests are conducted. Known as the 'Surveillance Towed Array Sonar System' (SURTASS) 'Low Frequency Active Sonar' (LFAS), the US Navy plans to deploy this system in eighty percent of the world‘s oceans. SURTASS LFAS will be used to listen for the newest, silent breeds of enemy submarines, by both listening for the sounds they might produce on their own, or by blasting sound throughout the oceans, then listening for the echoes bouncing off enemy subs. The first known test conducted by the US Navy of SURTASS LFAS was off the shores of Hawaii in 1998, when the Navy tried out their new toy, towing it behind the USS 'Corey Chouest', over migrating humpback whales. Although some reports say the US Navy will not exceed 180 decibels of sound, 160 is known to harm divers, whilst 140 has caused whales to change course, and abandon calves. Some reports have placed the noise levels as high as 300 decibels. Multiply a 747 by one thousand times to get an idea of what is being talked about here in terms of sound broadcast through the ocean! This level of sound can deafen sea mammals, which see by listening to their naturally occurring sonar. Recently the US Navy began tests of another form of anti-submarine sonar in the Bahamas. Within two days of the start of the test, fourteen whales were found beached.
For more info:
Hear the sound of LFAS for yourself in real audio: During World War II the US National Anthem was reissued in A flat. Music educators advised the President that A flat is a key that puts it within reach of all voices. The Pentagon spends 200 million a year on music not war. Army bands, pomp and circumstance etc.. YUM! The Ohio State University Entomology Department website gives me the creeps. Did you know........ A typical used mattress may have anywhere from 100,000 to 10 million mites inside Ten percent of a used pillows weight is composed of dead mites and their droppings. Mites prefer warm, moist surroundings such as the inside of a mattress. A favorite food is dander (both human and animal skin flakes). Humans shed about 1/5 ounce of dander (dead skin) each week. About 80 percent of the material seen floating in a sunbeam is actually skin flakes.
More icky info at:
MIGHTY MOUSE
Australian scientists have discovered a growth protein (SOCS-2) capable
of producing mutant mice 30-40% bigger than normal.
http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s147727.htm
URINE TROUBLE
The urine from 75,000 Canadian horses is currently supplying replacement
estrogen that's used as a drug by menopausal women.
http://whyfiles.news.wisc.edu/055oddball/urine.html
INTERNET2: Just when you thought it was safe to surf again!
Don't get caught up so quick in this internet thing folks because as
quick as you can say IPO there's a new internet on the horizon. It's
called Internet2 and this currently not-for-profit consortium is being
led by over 170 US universities working in partnership with industry and
government in order to develop and deploy the creation of tomorrow's
Internet. With participation by over 60 leading companies, Internet2 is
recreating the partnership among academia, industry and government that
fostered today´s Internet in its infancy. But you can rest assure that
this time the Government and Industry are
gonna control most of the pie and leave the crumbs for the next
generation of E-comkids
Internet2 is not a separate physical network and will not replace the
Internet. Just as email and the World Wide Web are legacies of earlier
investments in academic and federal research networks, the legacy of
Internet2 will be to expand the possibilities of the broader Internet.
Internet2 and its members are developing and testing new technologies,
such as IPv6, multicasting and quality of service (QoS) that will enable
revolutionary Internet applications. However, these applications require
performance not possible on today's Internet. More than a faster Web or
email, these new technologies will enable completely new applications
such as digital libraries, virtual laboratories, distance-independent
learning and tele-immersion. A primary goal of Internet2 is to ensure
the transfer of new network technology and applications to the broader
education and networking communities.
Internet2 universities have committed over $80 million per year in new
investments on their own campuses and corporate members have committed
more than $30 million over the life of the project.
Beware.......http://www.internet2.edu/html/about.html#
THESE BOOTS WERE MADE FOR TALKING
Trevor Baylis, the celebrated inventor of the windup radio, is testing
boots that convert the energy of walking into electricity for powering
gadgets such as cellphones and handhelds. Baylis has co-launched a
startup, the Electric Shoe Company, to bring power-generating footwear
to market, possibly within a year.
The experimental boots have soles made from a piezoelectric material,
which generates high voltages of electricity when compressed. For
years, piezoelectric materials have been used in the electronic ignition
switches on gas stoves. But instead of generating a charge for a spark,
Baylis' boots convert the electricity into a trickle of current capable
of charging a cell phone battery.
http://www.theelectricshoeco.com/
GAS SHOES
Russian inventor has created motorized shoes! The shoes weigh 2 pounds
apiece, and work by means of foot-long pistons which trigger a plate
attached to the shoe's sole. They fire when the wearer steps down,
pushing a metal platform away from the bottom of the shoe. This shoots
the wearer up into the air. The metal plate is connected to the sole of
the shoe by springs, so it snaps back into place after each step. Single
strides are up to 13 feet long, and wearers can attain speeds of up to
25 mph! The fuel lasts for about 25 minutes
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsid_820000/820398.stm
THE HISTORY OF MUZAK
In the early '20s, Gen. George Squier merged "music," with his favorite
"high-tech" company, Kodak, and found the name he was looking
for--MUZAK. Soon, as tall buildings continued to sprout in North
American cities, nervous riders of a new gadget called the elevator were
calmed by the subtle tones of music by Muzak, much to the delight of
their employers and their neighborhood department stores. It was the
birth of "audio architecture".
Next was the big band era, which for Muzak turned into the big business
era. The account base grew quickly throughout the 1940s when word spread
that workplace music increased morale, thus increasing productivity and
attendance. Music programming went a step further in the 1950s with
Stimulus Progression, the notion that the intensity of the music
directly influenced employee productivity - morning, noon and night.
By the time Elvis arrived on the music scene, Muzak was up to 150
franchises and began putting its music on audio tape, shelving the
phonograph-through-telephone lines. The company changed hands from the
Wrather Corp. in 1957 to the TelePrompter Corp. in 1972 to the
Westinghouse Corp. in 1981. By then, Elvis was gone, but New Wave was
the rage and direct broadcast satellite was the music delivery of
choice. The first broadcast program, Foreground Music One, remains one
of Muzak's most popular.
In the mid-*80s, Muzak entered into a private-label agreement with
Yesco, the Seattle-based originators of "foreground" music. While Muzak
re-recorded songs for background play, Yesco compiled reel-to-reel tapes
of current original artist hits to be used as foreground music. The
successful partnership soon led to the introduction of cassette tapes as
another delivery method, giving clients more music choices than ever
before: numerous music programs via satellite and up to 500 cassette
programs.
A BEER EVEN YOUR MOTHER WILL LOVE...
HE'BREW ("The Chosen Beer") is the first kosher microbrew with
chutzpah!!
The Shmaltz Brewing Company is dedicated to crafting quality beer and
quality shtick for the Jewish community and beyond.
L'Chaim!
http://www.shmaltz.com/meetTheFamily.html
WORLD GAME
In the 1960's Buckminster Fuller (the man who invented the geodesic
dome) proposed a "great logistics game" and "world peace game" (later
shortened to simply, the "World Game") that was intended to be a tool
that would facilitate a comprehensive, anticipatory, design science
approach to the problems of the world. We are, in Fuller's words,
onboard Spaceship Earth, and the illogic of 200 nation state admirals
all trying to steer the spaceship in different directions is made clear
through the metaphor-as well in Fuller's more caustic assessment of
nation states as "blood clots" in the world's global metabolism.
Today the World Game is being developed by the World Game Institute, a
non-profit, non-partisan, independent research and education
organization based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It is keeping Fuller's
vision alive and vital as it takes advantage of new advances in
technology and data availability. One of its products is the World Game
Workshop, an interactive, experiential workshop that takes place on top
of the world's largest and most accurate map of the whole world.
Participants are placed in charge of the world and lead it into the 21st
century. NetWorld Game is an Internet based simulation of the global
economy where people from around the world assume leadership for the
world for twenty years and address the problems of their region and the
whole world. Some of the problems are local in origin, other are global
in scope.
http://www.worldgame.org/
DIGITAL KILLED THE RADIO STAR
Sirius Radio just launched the first of three satellites that plan to
provide coast-to-coast digital radio to motorists. In order to receive
the digital signal, cars must be outfitted with new receivers that will
cost around $280. The 100 channel service will cost motorists
$9.95/month. Ford, Volvo, Mazda, Mitsubishi, Saab, and Cadillac will
offer the options in 2001 model-year cars, and have also signed up many
of the leading car stereo manufacturers to create components.
WEATHER CONTROL
Gordon MacDonald's chapter, "How to Wreck the Environment", for the book
Unless Peace Comes, describes the use of weather manipulation, climate
modification, polar ice-cap melting or destabilisation, ozone depletion
techniques, earthquake engineering, ocean wave control and brainwave
manipulation using the planet's energy fields. He also said that these
types of weapons would be developed and, when used, would be virtually
undetectable by their victims. The military's intention to do
environmental engineering is well-documented.
As far back as 1958, the chief White House adviser on weather
modification, Captain Howard T. Orville, said the US defence department
was studying "ways to
manipulate the charges of the Earth and sky and so affect the weather by
using an electronic beam to ionise or de-ionise the atmosphere over a
given area.
WEB SAMPLERS:
The cast of Gilligan's Island personify the eight-circuit model of
human-consciousness.
1. GILLIGAN: The Oral Bio-Survival Circuit.
http://www.daft.com/~scotto/essays/circuits.html
CHRISTIAN VENTRILOQUISM RECORDS
Real life cannot get any weirder than this......
http://www.showandtellmusic.com/pages/christian/ventriloquists.html
MOTEL FETISH
Look through any keyhole and get an eye or two full of real naked ladies
in simulated motel environments. AIR CONDITIONING * COLOR TV * KIDS
STAY FREE * FREE HBO
http://www.zaius.com/dept/annexia/motel.fetish/index.htm
DOT COM REVENGE
http://www.blowthedotoutyourass.com/
FREE ONLINE VIDEO GAMES
http://www.free-gaming.com/
Send your web samplers to:
chris@intransonic.com
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[Editor's note: This banner appears as per Chris' request. If you have a fervor/cause/impulse that you wish to manifest right here free of charge contact chris@discobiscuits.com]