Who would have thought such a hip person as Steve Jobs would have such a dim view of human media consumption? Well, okay, who would have thought he’d admit to such a thing.

From Wikiquote:

When you’re young, you look at television and think, There’s a conspiracy. The networks have conspired to dumb us down. But when you get a little older, you realize that’s not true. The networks are in business to give people exactly what they want. That’s a far more depressing thought. Conspiracy is optimistic! You can shoot the bastards! We can have a revolution! But the networks are really in business to give people what they want. It’s the truth. — Steve Jobs

Poking around the internet I came across this: Party of One: The Loners’ Manifesto

I was on some writer’s blog, and if I remember correctly they felt the book spoke for them. I consider myself something of a loner (not severely so, but leaning in that direction) and so the book piqued my curiosity. If I had more free time I would crack the book open to see what it is all about. I admit I found some of the reviews on Amazon a bit amusing in their apparent relief to discover an acceptance for (or justification of) their lonerism. Personally I was never so insecure in my personality to need affirmation on this subject.

I have no idea if the book offers any insightful thoughts. Maybe you can check it out for me.

****

As an unrelated tid-bit, I was recently sucked into browsing on Flickr. I generally try to avoid the website as, at best, it seems to be a waste of time. Not to say you can’t find a lot of really good photos–because you can–but even then . . . it really is rather a waste of time.

Anyhow, I ended up browsing the “Beautiful Mountains” pool. Needless to say, there are a lot of really beautiful mountain pictures. In an attempt to redeem my wasted time, I will point you all toward two I thought stood out from the many beautiful photos I saw.

I think the sky in this one is fantastic in its moodiness. Too bad there isn’t a larger version.

This one is larger, and may induce a sense of vertigo. Either you will want to fling yourself off, or will be afraid that it might happen. I think the photo is so cool.

****

As a final note, it came to my attention that, as a result of a mistake on my part, readers who keep up on my blog via e-mail notification were not notified about two recent posts I wrote. Perhaps you e-mail readers found them anyhow. For those who didn’t, they were:

Interesterified Fat and Prenatal Urination

and,

Photos Round 2

For anyone non-technical, this article will make your eyes glaze over. The author has accomplished the feat of keeping track of all that he does with the Concurrent Version System (CVS). Even I do not have a good grasp of the precise details of exactly how one uses CVS or similar software, but I was recently looking Subversion, an attempted replacement for CVS, while investigating doing something like the author of the linked article did. My present conclusion is that the work required is not worth it at this point in my life.

But I certainly sympathize with the writer’s mentality, and admire his accomplishment. Being able to keep track of every change you’ve ever made in a file is a control freak geeks dream come true.

A quote on learning, and teaching:

“The truth is, when all is said and done, one does not teach a subject, one teaches a student how to learn it.”

–Jacques Barzun “Reasons to De-Test the Schools,” New York Times (1988-10-11), later published in Begin Here: The Forgotten Conditions of Teaching and Learning (1991)

One can take that observation too far, but most people today fail to understand it enough. At the risk of over-simplifying, the failure to understand what Barzun has articulated is the failure of modern education.

Apparently, in some places explosives are used to dispose of dead whales.

If explosive charges will be used, the most common procedure today is to tow the whale out to see and then use whatever charges necessary to sink or disintegrate the whale. But back in November 1970 the Oregon Department of Transportation had a dead beached whale on their hands. Finding burying it impractical, they deemed blowing the dead whale to smithereens with half a ton of dynamite the best solution. One can detect a certain male type of thinking behind such reasoning.

The results were predictable. “The explosion caused large pieces of blubber to land some distance away from the beach, resulting in a smashed car. The explosion disintegrated only some of the whale, most of which remained on the beach for the Oregon Highway Division workers to clear away.”

Lest you think things can’t get any weirder, some dead whale explode naturally.

A second whale explosion occurred on January 26, 2004, in Tainan City, Taiwan. In this incident, a buildup of gas inside a decomposing sperm whale, measuring 17 m (55 ft 9 in) long and weighing 50 tons, caused it to burst. The older bull whale had died after becoming beached on the southwestern coast of Taiwan, and it had taken more than 13 hours, three large cranes, and 50 workers to shift the beached sperm whale onto the back of a truck.

While the whale was being moved Taiwan News reported that “a large crowd of more than 600 local Yunlin residents and curiosity seekers, along with vendors selling snack food and hot drinks, braved the cold temperature and chilly wind to watch workmen try to haul away the dead marine leviathan”

The result:

The explosion was reported to have splattered blood and whale entrails over surrounding shop-fronts, bystanders, and cars. BBC News Online interviewed an unnamed Taiwanese local who said, “What a stinking mess. This blood and other stuff that blew out on the road is disgusting, and the smell is really awful.”

Also, in another incident, “A stranded whale in Salt Spring Island, British Columbia, also decayed until it exploded. Locals say that its blubber ‘hung in the trees for weeks.’”

The moral of this story? Be very careful of dead whales. You never know when one might explode.

For further reading, and a disgusting picture from the Taiwan incident, head on over to Wikipedia.