It's only mine because it holds my suitcase.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Commercials are pretty much word soup these days

BWM would like you to know that

Performance now is all about logic.
That some cars cost as much as $1500 to maintain is one thing.
That others cost even more is quite another.
That a BMW costs you nothing to maintain, defies all logic whatsoever.
And in turn makes it the most logical choice of all.

It's English. . .I think. Those are English words, anyways. That they have no semantic meaning is another thing whatsoever. I understand what they're trying to say here - honestly I do, and I understand what they want you to hear as well. What they want you to hear is this:

Performance now is all about logic.
That some cars cost as much as $1500 to maintain is one thing.
That others cost even more is quite another.
That a BMW costs you nothing to maintain, defies all logic whatsoever.
And in turn makes it the most logical choice of all.

Thing is, what they're actually saying is that some cars cost less than a specific amount to maintain over an unspecified amount of time and some don't. Also that performance is logic and providing a service contract with your cars isn't logical, and therefore, presumably, not performance. I'm not quite sure about that last bit though, since defying all logic is apparently quite logical.

I used to think that the people who made these things were really, really smart, and that they chose their words with great care, but I'm starting to suspect that they're just spouting gibberish and don't even realize how retarded their nonsense ends up sounding.

Saturday, June 13, 2009

Riots in Tehran, Crickets on Cable

We are all Iranian TodayI have been completely captivated by what's been going on in Iran for the last day or so - glued to my screen, actually. If you haven't been paying attention, or if you've been paying attention to the wrong sources, you'd think that there was an election, Ahmadinejad won a new term and there were some people mildly upset. The local media here is saying things like "World Reacts to Iran's Disputed Election" and "Ahmadinejad hails election as protests grow" on their sites and dedicating little if any time on their broadcasts.

What's really happening over there seems to be much more profound and much more brutal. The only problem is that there are no official sources, no authoritative reporters. There are, however, people twittering from Tehran, people posting images of bloodied protesters and recounting the disregarding of ballots and the abducting of dissidents. Nothing's clear right now, except that what is happening in Iran bears little semblance to what the major American news networks are reporting. According to the internet, Tehran is on fire, but according to the news, Tehran is mildly peeved. You be the judge.


Saturday, June 6, 2009

Imagine hundreds of people talking about football!

An early 90s news report on a new phenomenon named "Internet", where people come together to discuss interesting topics in a polite, well educated environment. Choice quote: "There's not a lot of cursing or swearing."


Adam Savage on Failure

Adam SavageAdam Savage was one of the speakers at this year's Maker Faire; his speech was on the subject of (professional) failure and how it helped form his career. Well worth the time: Adam's speech in full