How Your Facebook Likes Fight Hunger and Disease

Yeah. That's about all that happens. Big cardboard "like" hands are distributed to them. I hear they taste like chicken.

If you care about ending hunger and disease, click Like and Share this photo. Or else you're a humanity hating dirtbag!


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Frustrating Cult Persuasion Techniques

It's easy to thwart cults, bullies, and abusers if you simply maintain a position and never, ever budge.

Sometimes it takes JUST ONE person expressing dissent to start a whole movement. Don't let anyone ever tell you "you're just one person, what can you do?"

One time, in upstate New York, I reluctantly attended an EST Hunger Project meeting, deep in the woods (creepy), having been invited by a couple friends. At one point in the presentation, they tried a word trick trap on me.

They said, "Do we all agree that you are here to consider contributing to the Hunger Project?"

If you said, "Yes" then they'd take you down a path of "logic" that ends with you being forced to give them money.

I raised my hand and said, "No. I'm NOT here to consider contributing to the Hunger Project. I'm here to gather information. That's all."

The presenter got a bit upset, tried to force me into agreeing to consider contributing, but I stonewalled him relentlessly. The ONLY way to win against this type of coercion is to remain stubborn in your position, no matter what.

So I was told to leave the room. I obliged. I went into the kitchen and started helping cut cheese for snacks.

15 minutes later, the presenter came up to me and begged me to come back into the presentation room. "Everybody's been arguing about whether or not you should have been kicked out of the room. I can't stop the debate, unless you come back in," he said. 

He looked really desperate. I went back into the Indoctrination Room and sat there with a smirk on my face. Man, was I happy to get out of that place!



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Facebook game asks you to post stupid status updates

Post stupid status updates on your Facebook page? How could you be tricked into doing that? It happens all the time and people fall for it.

Another version of this misanthropic Facebook "game" is going around, designed to get you to post stupid statements on your page. Every couple of months, there seems to be yet another iteration of this.


You're supposed to pick one of the statements below and post it as your status update:


1. Damned diarrhea.

2. Just used my boobs to get out of a speeding ticket.

3. Any one got a tampon? I'm desperate.

4. How do I get rid of foot fungus?

5. Why is no one around when I'm horny?

6. No toilet paper, good bye socks.

Further instructions: "Post with no explanation.Please be a good sport."

It should say "Please be an ignorant chump."

There is no point to playing this "secret game" other than causing alarm among your friends and causing the general credibility of Facebook content to decline.

If you see one of these status updates, and you click Like or post a comment, you will be pulled into the game. 

Do NOT go along with this "game". Resist it. Refuse to participate.

Posting phony alarming and self-deprecating status updates is not "funny" or a "joke" -- it will make people hesitate to trust all your status update statements, since they'll have to decide if a specific update is serious and for real, or just another gag update.



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Str8 Sounds "Buchla in the Never World"

Str8 Sounds "Buchla in the Never World" -- one of my most outlandish but interesting audio projects, a  performance of September 21, 2010 (78 minutes 02 seconds).

FREE mp3s:

Part One -- http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=12733391

Part Two -- http://soundclick.com/share.cfm?id=12733400

"Buchla in the Never World" consists of 6 YouTube video channels of old synthesizer and musical instrument demonstrations playing simultaneously, whilst modulating their volumes up and down, and changing the videos continuously, for an ever-changing but randomly coherent sonic flow.

Reminiscent of Stereolab, Iannis Xenakis, Morton Subotnick, Messiaen, Merzbow, Tangerine Dream, The Residents, Kraftwerk, and The Orb combined in a swirling circus of electronic vibrations.

This methodology is done seamlessly, dreamfully, softly assertive, then pools into mild milieu of placid plasticity, whilst almost slipping indiscretely into ionic segues and interplasmic micro-sequences.

Perhaps the most strangely beautiful music I've ever orchestrated.

PART ONE (41:31): Buchla 291e, Buchla EMX, Buchla 285e, Buchla 259e, XOXBOX Synth, Korg SQ-10, Electron Monomachine, EMS Synthi, Prophet 600, Roland Microprocessor 202, Dutchtronix Oscilloscope Clock, Oberheim OBX, Commodore 64 Mssiah Monosynth, Moon Machine M569, Moon Modular Octal Clock Divider M554, Zeroscillator, ElectroKraft Ring Modulator, Wooden Noise Drone Synth, RCA Sound Tape Cartridge.

PART TWO (36:28): Buchla 100, Buchla 200e, Grendel Drone Commander, Nord Micro Modular, Buchla 259, Plan-B Vactrol Filter, Kaoscillator, Korg Sigma, Arp 2600, Arp Odyssey, Roland TB-303, Roland SH-7, Farfisa Syntorchestra, Arp 2500, Moog Prodigy, Roland Jupiter 4, Korg Kaoss Pad 3, Zeroscillator, Farfisa Polychrome, Alesis Midiverb 4, Micromoog, TR-808, Solaris.

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Google means you don't have to be clueless anymore!

If you don't know what something is, or what some word means, Google it.

It's amusing to see someone post a comment on Facebook like "What is Bitcoin?" or "What does tertiary mean?" or "What are some home remedies for acid reflux?" Why announce to the world your lack of understanding, when you can Google it?

It's funny to see people post hoaxes on Facebook without doing some quick online research. Recently a friend posted a warning about how Facebook is going to start deleting accounts of people who use swear words, starting this year.

Just Google "Facebook swear words" to see articles on Snopes and other watchdog websites debunking this false information.

You'll have to learn how to come up with the best keywords for searching a topic, and how to sift through the search results listed, but in a short time you'll become good at it.

Internet search makes available a huge portion of the accumulated knowledge of mankind. It's hard to quantify it. Is it 10%? 50%? How do we define "knowledge"? 

Not all the information on the internet is true, accurate, or up-to-date. Much nonsense, error, and deliberate misinformation is available, too. So we must get good at determining the reliability and completeness of what we find when we Google something.

The data of the internet keeps expanding all the time. Sometimes you may Google something and find nothing. A few months later, you Google it again, and may find a lot of information.

Learning to distinguish good information from bad information is a real skill. Doing internet research is a marketable talent that will help almost anybody in any field of endeavor. 

You can Google "web credibility" to start your training. There are scholastic guidelines on how to tell if a website is authoritative and trustworthy. Various universities and journalism sites offer good tips on this subject of assessing the value of internet information. 

http://mason.gmu.edu/~montecin/web-eval-sites.htm

http://credibility.stanford.edu/

http://www.usg.edu/galileo/skills/unit07/internet07_08.phtml

http://voices.yahoo.com/ten-ways-determine-credibility-information-4971912.html


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