Big Pharma – Big Bucks…
This is the best documentary i’ve seen about Big Pharma. I encourage you to watch all 6 parts of this… totals at just under an hour, altogether. I also encourage you to share share share with your loved ones. If anyone can be saved from pathologizing their own human experience, it will be worth the email.
The Case for Working With Your Hands
Props to Resynthesize for finding this…
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/magazine/24labor-t.html?_r=1&em
a FANTASTIC article in the New York Times about the intrinsic (and often overlooked) value of working with your hands. Authored by Matthew B Crawford, whose new book, Shop Class as Soulcraft sounds equally impressive.
“In the boardrooms of Wall Street and the corridors of Pennsylvania Avenue, I don’t think you’ll see a yellow sign that says “Think Safety!” as you do on job sites and in many repair shops, no doubt because those who sit on the swivel chairs tend to live remote from the consequences of the decisions they make. Why not encourage gifted students to learn a trade, if only in the summers, so that their fingers will be crushed once or twice before they go on to run the country?
On a related note, I recently read a piece suggesting that art students are subject to a similar style of “life-training.” For example: when you set out to draw a portrait, there are no set rules for where to begin or what style it should be rendered in. When you are moving the pencil, you are making hundreds of tiny decisions per second without any detailed instructions. Only you can decide what strokes are “right” or “wrong” or when you are “done.” In this respect, art teaches us confidence… how to make your own decisions and stand behind them… and just like in a repair shop, if you screw something up, the feedback is instantaneous, tactile and measurable. You can’t fudge numbers or lay people off at the end of the quarter to cover up the fact that your kerning sucks.
For this reason, it’s a shame that the art programs are usually the first to get cut when the budget is looking lean. But I digress… if you have time, read this article.
Self Checkout Lane
Are these stores really saving money by PISSING OFF ALL THE CUSTOMERS?
as usual, I found some image online to support my blog entry (above) and I think it’s ironic that this was a picture from home depot… in my opinion the WORST OF THE WORST when it comes to self checkout.
I mean why have 10 registers? Just to impress me during the grand opening and maybe around Xmas time? The rest of the year I have to find some way to ring myself up for a bag of nails… rebar… and pieces of lumbar too big to fit in the staging area?
This morning it was the save-mart or what-not… up the road here… All I wanted was 2 bags of ice. Do you know how long 2 bags of ice takes to buy when there is nobody in line? Should be fucking effortless… but no… the whole process took me 5 minutes before the machine was ready to take my monies… the All-Seeing-Attendant tried to ring me up but pushed a few wrong buttons and then had to scan some badge of his at my self-checkout-terminal twice just to get the thing to unlock.
After all is said and done and precious minutes of my life have been wasted, the attendant says “Have nice day… don’t forget your ice.”
Someday… mark my words… the Self Checkout Lane will be looked back upon as one of the signs of the impending end of civilized life on this planet…
Help Save Internet Radio!!!
Don’t know if you guys have heard about what’s going on with internet radio TODAY… but click on the links below to learn how everything’s about to fully suck… and maybe we can help. ~S
Today is the internet radio day of silence to protest the fucked up increase in royalty fees.
SoMaFM alone will owe $1.1 million if this goes thru, bkz it’s retroactive. What BS.
Anyway, check it out, if you like
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