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Ramalam's LiveJournal:
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| Monday, March 28th, 2011 | | 2:07 pm |
The Social Contract
"The notion of the social contract is that individuals unite into a society by a process of mutual consent, agreeing to abide by certain rules and to accept duties to protect one another from violence, fraud, or negligence." One version of this is the opinion "that we gain civil rights in return for accepting the obligation to respect and defend the rights of others..." | | Thursday, January 20th, 2011 | | 1:25 pm |
We used to wait...
2011 so far. Went to France for a week to learn to Ski. Didn't injure myself, nor did S. Skiing is awesome and I hope to go again sometime. Came back and went straight into rehearsals for 'The Other roof'. Three shows done this week and made some new friends/industry contacts who might have more Stage Management opportunities for me. Work is very busy. Trying harder to keep in contact with people than last year. P. | | Wednesday, October 6th, 2010 | | 4:19 pm |
"All in the golden afternoon...
Full leisurely we glide; For both our oars, with little skill, By little arms are plied, While little hands make vain pretence Our wanderings to guide. Ah, cruel Three! In such an hour Beneath such dreamy weather, To beg a tale of breath too weak To stir the tiniest feather! Yet what can one poor voice avail Against three tongues together? Imperious Prima flashes forth Her edict to begin it In gentler tone Secunda hopes "There will be nonsense in it!" While Tertia interrupts the tale Not more than once a minute. Anon, to sudden silence won, In fancy they pursue The dream-child moving through a land Of wonders wild and new, In friendly chat with bird or beast -- And half believe it true. And ever, as the story drained The wells of fancy dry, And faintly strove that weary one To put the subject by, ;The rest next time' -- 'It is next time!' The happy voices cry. Thus grew the tale of Wonderland: Thus slowly, one by one, Its quaint events were hammered out And now the tale is done, And home we steer, a merry crew, Beneath the setting sun. Alice! a childish story take, And with a gentle hand Lay it where Childhood's dreams are twined In Memory's mystic band, Like pilgrim's wither'd wreath of flowers Pluck'd in a far-off land." Lewis Caroll from 'Alice in Wonderland' | | Tuesday, October 5th, 2010 | | 5:08 pm |
"I was awoke at 6 o'clock...
...by Mamma, who told me the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Conyngham were here and wished to see me. I got out of bed and went into my sitting-room (only in my dressing gown) and alone, and saw them. Lord Conyngham then acquainted me that my poor Uncle, the King, was no more, and had expired at 12 minutes past 2 this morning, and consequently that I am Queen." Queen Victoria, from her diary 20 June 1837. She was 18 years old. | | 5:06 pm |
| | Wednesday, September 15th, 2010 | | 5:15 pm |
| | Wednesday, July 14th, 2010 | | 10:42 pm |
| | Tuesday, July 13th, 2010 | | 11:00 pm |
"As a minister, I experienced the power of industrialists and bankers to get their way...
...by use of the crudest form of economic pressure, even blackmail, against a Labour Government. Compared to this, the pressure brought to bear in industrial disputes is minuscule. This power was revealed even more clearly in 1976 when the IMF secured cuts in our public expenditure. These lessons led me to the conclusion that the UK is only superficially governed by MPs and the voters who elect them. Parliamentary democracy is, in truth, little more than a means of securing a periodical change in the management team, which is then allowed to preside over a system that remains in essence intact. If the British people were ever to ask themselves what power they truly enjoyed under our political system they would be amazed to discover how little it is, and some new Chartist agitation might be born and might quickly gather momentum." Tony Benn 1988. | | Thursday, May 13th, 2010 | | 1:07 pm |
"He is no God of love...
... no justice of a little city like Dante's Florence, no anthropoid God Making commandments: this is the God who does not care and will never cease. Look at the seas there Flashing against this rock in the darkness — look at the tide-stream stars — and the fall of nations — and dawn Wandering with wet white feet down the Carmel Valley to meet the sea. These are real and we see their beauty." Robinson Jeffers "The Great Explosion" in the posthumous publication The Beginning and the End (1973) | | Tuesday, May 4th, 2010 | | 10:48 pm |
Reasons to delete your Facespace account or at least customize it heavily
The first and major reason is that ALL your data is shared with any application you accept. Many of these are simply Marketing tools to access this data in order to sell you stuff. Getting more spam recently? We all signed up to this when we joined Facebook, take a look at the Terms and Conditions and THEN take a look at the 'extra permissions' each of those applications get. This might not seem so bad, after all these are simply fun game applications. However, if Facebook is so lax with what might be sensitive data, what reassures you that the people who run the application are? They have all your data, what is to stop them either selling that data or having it stolen by others? Those who steal are criminals yes, but you would be surprised how much of this kind of stealing goes on within the media (read 'Flat Earth News'). The second is that, in order for Facebook to sell your data to third parties (yes this is how they make their money and do not have to charge), they require it to be accurate and be up to date an can in fact delete your account should you not keep it up to date. This is rarely enforced but it still seems a draconian measure for something that was meant to be the hub of social networking sites. I got the above from my own sources and: http://www.rocket.ly/home/2010/4/26/top-ten-reasons-you-should-quit-facebook.htmlObviously I have selected the two reasons that mean the most to me as the other seem less convincing The writer does work for a competitor social networking site and therefore has the motive to heavily imply certain things. But this is not enough to make me leave Facebook, I quite like it here, but it is a warning to those who put too much information on their profiles. Please be careful. So, this is the reason why I am highly unlikely to be adding any apps you send me. It is nothing personal, I just like the illusion that I have some kind of control over my data. I will be altering my profile to display a lot less information. P. | | Thursday, April 29th, 2010 | | 5:25 pm |
"Few men realise...
...that their life, the very essence of their character, their capabilities and their audacities, are only the expression of their belief in the safety of their surroundings." Joseph Conrad, 1896 | | Wednesday, April 28th, 2010 | | 2:57 pm |
| | Monday, April 26th, 2010 | | 11:01 pm |
"This is a generation that is under pressure from the media it consumes..."
...to be brazenly materialistic, selfish, depoliticized and non-socially minded. To the extent one finds these values problematic for a democracy, we all should be concerned. The commercial media is the ideological lynchpin of the globalising market economy. Consider the case of the Czech Republic. Only a decade ago (Ram: 1989) the young generation led the 'Velvet Revolution' against the Communist Regime under the slogan 'Truth and love must prevail over lies and hatred'. Ten years later, even the Wall Street Journal acknowledged that the Czech Republic had turned into a demoralised morass, where 'an unnerving dash to the free market' had created a society awash with greed, selfishness, corruption and scams." Robert McChesney 'It's the media stupid ' 2000. | | Thursday, April 8th, 2010 | | 12:15 pm |
As it it national poetry month again...
A penny for the Old Guy I We are the hollow men We are the stuffed men Leaning together Headpiece filled with straw. Alas! Our dried voices, when We whisper together Are quiet and meaningless As wind in dry grass Or rats' feet over broken glass In our dry cellar Shape without form, shade without colour, Paralysed force, gesture without motion; Those who have crossed With direct eyes, to death's other Kingdom Remember us - if at all - not as lost Violent souls, but only As the hollow men The stuffed men. II Eyes I dare not meet in dreams In death's dream kingdom These do not appear: There, the eyes are Sunlight on a broken column There, is a tree swinging And voices are In the wind's singing More distant and more solemn Than a fading star. Let me be no nearer In death's dream kingdom Let me also wear Such deliberate disguises Rat's coat, crowskin, crossed staves In a field Behaving as the wind behaves No nearer - Not that final meeting In the twilight kingdom III This is the dead land This is cactus land Here the stone images Are raised, here they receive The supplication of a dead man's hand Under the twinkle of a fading star. Is it like this In death's other kingdom Waking alone At the hour when we are Trembling with tenderness Lips that would kiss Form prayers to broken stone. IV The eyes are not here There are no eyes here In this valley of dying stars In this hollow valley This broken jaw of our lost kingdoms In this last of meeting places We grope together And avoid speech Gathered on this beach of the tumid river Sightless, unless The eyes reappear As the perpetual star Multifoliate rose Of death's twilight kingdom The hope only Of empty men. V Here we go round the prickly pear Prickly pear prickly pear Here we go round the prickly pear At five o'clock in the morning. Between the idea And the reality Between the motion And the act Falls the Shadow For Thine is the Kingdom Between the conception And the creation Between the emotion And the response Falls the Shadow Life is very long Between the desire And the spasm Between the potency And the existence Between the essence And the descent Falls the Shadow For Thine is the Kingdom For Thine is Life is For Thine is the This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends This is the way the world ends Not with a bang but a whimper. The Hollow Men. T.S Eliot | | 12:14 pm |
Thus, it is passed...
The Digital Economy Bill has been passed by the House of Commons and now races on to the third reading in the House of Lords: Tech Crunch puts it like this: "The law will of course have many “unintended consequences”, as Watson put it in his speech against the bill. In trying to support the old music industry models and tackle illegal file-sharing, the #DEBill, as it’s known on Twitter, is poised to produce a new culture. That of legal letters from music industry bodies to ISPs, bewildered householders and, no doubt, an manner of Internet companies. In the past the lawyers had to go after the infringers, with actual proof. Now, the holder of the Internet account (Mum, Dad, Grandparents and the small startup that can’t afford the legal fees) will be held to account for what happens over their connection. Parents who have no idea their teenage children, neighbours, or even someone parked outside their house, has been slurping their WiFi and downloading the latest movies and music, will now be up in court. During the debate there was a farcical moment when Stephen Timms, the Labour government’s Finance Minister said, with a throw away line, that people could simply password protect their WiFi. Of course, this shows a staggering lack of knowledge of how easy these are to break. More importantly the Bill does not even afford any guaranteed legal protection for people who try to put security measures in place. A new way for lawyers to create another ambulance chasing industry? How’s that for unintended consequences. So let’s just rack this up. • Media regulator Ofcom, say our sources, doesn’t want to enforce this new law and has no idea how it will. • Twitter is awash with people saying they are going encrypted and will now use a Tor or anonymity network to go online. • The wave of civil disobedience started within minutes of the Bill being passed. e.g. See Whatdebill.org • Legislation based on misconceptions about the cost of file-sharing, when file sharers are already 10 times more likely to pay for songs than those who don’t. • Spotify, which is providing a free music alternative to file sharing, is actually owned by the record labels which wrote much of this this legislation. So on the one hand it bleets about piracy, while on the other forgets to mention it’s giving away music with ads. How many MPs know this? • And even while the UK is one of the best places in Europe to start an Internet company, if one of your employees goes rogue you’ll be in the frame for it. All this while more enlightened governments across the planet are starting to talk about Internet access as a human right. How does that sit with withdrawing it without any presumption of innocence?" Full article here: http://eu.techcrunch.com/2010/04/08/doublethink-the-digital-economy-bill-against-the-digital-economy/ | | Thursday, April 1st, 2010 | | 5:19 pm |
"The facts of climate change have become the site of a three cornered battle...
...in which truth, as ever has been an immediate casualty. In one corner are companies like Exxon who are fighting a head-to head war of attrition denying that global warming is occuring and/or that it is a man-made problem for which they have any responsibility. Against them are groups like Greenpeace, 'cranking up the anxiety' with highly emotive messages about the scale of the threat. The third corner is occupied by companies like BP who have broken away from Exxon and adopted a strategy of camoflage, radically redrawing their image to cloak their business in green credentials. For all three forces, the mass media has become a weapon of convenience, constantly available to fire off their messages for them. And in the background, rather like a civilian population in a warzone, the billions of people who rely on the mass media for their information have suffered the worst injuries of all under a bombardment of falsehood, distortion and propaganda." 'Flat Earth News' Nick Davies 2008 | | Monday, March 15th, 2010 | | 3:50 pm |
"Home- home in the late-night...
and away- away in the half-life except Saturday- crushed by the boring until played and plagued again by the tourists when once you had believed it now you see it's sucking you in to string you along with the pretense and pave the way for the coming release alone and prone in the half-light and late- late to the real-life if you find a way into the gold rush you will stay until the morning comes you can normalize don't it make you feel alive." LCD Soundsystem - Get Innocuous! I went into work early on friday in order to leave early. I had failed to get enough sleep the previous night because I was up packing for the weekend and (failing to) organise myself. My housemate had also asked me to tidy my room for a quick look by another housemate who might want to move in. The look was cancelled about halfway through the tidying. Friday I sped off to Bristol for a weekend of Dark Heresy. What should have been my magnum opus of Gming was a flawed work, but still enjoyed by the players. So that was good. The best part of course was laughing our heads off long into the night. So I rushed back on sunday to see Mum, had dinner which was nice then caught the LATE train back to London. The train took an hour and a half due to engineering works so I ended up standing outside Waterloo at gone midnight waiting for the bus and fending off beggars. Two of the number bus I needed went past 'out of service'. After half an hour I caught a bus that went nearer where I live than Waterloo. In that near-dark land I drifted through the dim streets of London, a strange calm falling on me. The epiphany that can only be experienced in such times was that being upset or angry that I was waiting at the bus stop, being threatened by beggars and feeling cold and tired did not make the bus come any faster. No matter how angry I got, the bus would not come. Thusly, there was no point in being angry. I would find my way home, I would sleep. Getting off still some distance away I got on the other bus. In a few short minutes on a bus that was asleep besides myself and the driver I collapsed into bed at 1:36. But what a weekend :D | | Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010 | | 10:23 pm |
Scattershot
It was an honour and a pleasure to be present at Gwyn and Lucy's wedding. So many people there I like and don't see enough of. I was a really great ceremony, then with the castle, the snow (SNOWFIGHT!) and laughs all the day. Even made some kind of long-overdue peace with Profaniti so that was nice. I have been asked to write a serialised novel of a sort and get paid for it. Like a proper writer. S. is fantastic as always. Work is not. Have been quoted on a flyer. Now feel like a proper reviewer. When the translation comes from treading water to swimning in the big ocean will I recognise it? Will I reach the distant shore or drown? Will I treat success and failure as the imposters I know they are. iphone! ZOMG Larping - enjoying FnH, looking forward to Outcast, hope to see people at the LT. So very busy in the evenings. I think long thoughts | | Tuesday, February 23rd, 2010 | | 3:49 pm |
“We the undersigned petition the Prime Minister to scrap ID cards.”
Details of Petition: “The introduction of ID cards will not prevent terrorism or crime. Instead, this totalitarian act will not only further eradicate our civil liberties but bankrupt the country as well. The government simply cannot afford this scheme in the present climate, Over £5 billion and rising to churn out this white elephant. Jacqui Smith stated on the 7th November this year that she thinks the people ‘can’t wait for ID cards’! Who is she speaking to? Please sign this petition, to keep the pressure on the government to drop this scheme for good.” Response from Number 10: Thank you for your e-petition which calls on the Government to stop the National Identity Service. The Government is introducing identity cards on a voluntary basis because we want to provide UK residents with a secure and reliable method of proving their identity. It was a manifesto commitment and the Identity Cards Act 2006 provides a clear statutory basis for the Service. We remain committed to its implementation. The Government’s proposals are designed to safeguard, not erode, civil liberties by protecting people’s true identity against fraud and by enabling them to prove their identity more easily when accessing public or private services. One of the statutory purposes of the National Identity Service agreed by Parliament is to help in the prevention and detection of crime. Police organisations believe that identity cards will be useful tool in the fight against crime.By making it harder for criminals to use false or multiple identities and making it easier for people to be securely and reliably identified, identity cards will aid and enhance the tools that police use in preventing, detecting and combating crime and terrorism. In order to ensure the safe and secure issue of identity cards, we aim to follow and build on the existing secure procedures currently used in the issue of British passports. Identity cards will also assist in the prevention of fraud, money laundering, illegal working and illegal immigration and will be a reliable proof of age. Research over the past 18 months into public support for identity cards shows that 60% of people support the National Identity Service. The latest estimate of the cost of delivering the National Identity Service for the next 10 years, (covering the period October 2009 to October 2019) as published on 26th October 2009 is £4.575 million for UK citizens, including the issue of both passports and identity cards, and £309 million for foreign nationals. | | Wednesday, February 17th, 2010 | | 12:42 pm |
The Digital Economy Bill
If The Digital Economy Bill is passed in its current form any photograph you have put up on the internet can be used by anyone for marketing/branding/etc (unless of course you have in place the appropriate copywright). What this means is, that beautiful picture you took on that sunday walk, or on your holiday, or waiting for the bus that you just had to share with your mates because of the joy it brings them and you is now going to be ripped off by Rupert Murdoch and SOLD back to you as advertising for shoes or whatever. Not only that, we might see our own faces on the sides of buses selling us products that we dislike for moral or ethical reasons. If the bill passes in its current state the rights of the owner of the photograph to negotiate a fee, agree or disagree on usage of an image will disappear. This Bill is also the one that means that IPs can be removed from the internet by 'Pirate Finder General' Mandelson for filesharing. However, the Joint Select Commitee for Human Rights has told the Government that the bill could breach the rights of Internet Users so there is some hope. |
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