XIV- Trend Hopping

1st of all, happy Monday to everyone. All 3 of you who read my blog. If you got here looking for the Daves of Thunder post, scroll down and look over to the right. I decided to start today's edition of The Apprisal with the famous scene from Billy Madison for two main reasons:

1. To remind people that Adam Sandler used to be funny

2. To illustrate that most people are sheep.

What is Trend Hopping

I would classify trend hopping as jumping on the band wagon of some cultural trend, regardless of your actual interest in said trend. I'm not in the business of telling people how to live their life (Yet...more information to follow), but the point of this post isn't to ridicule these people. It's to help these people. By making fun of them.

As a point of disclosure, I'm sure everyone has had an interest or hobby as a younger person, and now upon reflecting back can laugh at what they were into. During Jr. High/ High School, I listened to a lot of metal/ hard rock music. While I still enjoy the majority of this modern metal, etc., there are some Cd's that aren't worth the material they are printed on. For an example, I present 18 Visions (18 Visions are great for their nonsensical approach to song structure and horrible lyrics/singing). I own worse Cd's then this, if you can believe it.

The Problem with Trend Hopping

The main problem with trend hopping is you are revolving your interest around a trend, i.e. a fad, because of the popularity or perceived "coolness" of the fad. That is all fine and dandy, but what happens when this trend, like the dodo bird, goes away? A person who has set this precedent of trying to associate with whatever is the latest & greatest, is forced into another trend. A great example of this are celebrities. They are easily dated by their appearances. Think of what was popular in the 80's- feathered hair, gaudy color combinations, nylon pants, etc. I think it's ironic that fashion shows are trying to sell clothing by designing stuff that is so weird no one would ever wear it. Is there something I'm missing here?

Examples of "Dead" Trends

Jnco Jeans

 I could write a whole post on Jnco Jeans. Absolutely horrible. I like to buy jeans that have a nice "boot cut", etc. so the jean fits around my shoe. I think the actual measurement is typically 18-20" in circumference. I'm not sure the point of jeans that have a 30"+ opening at the bottom, unless you A. want to look like a Jawa from Star Wars IV, or B. have elephant-man feet. Not to mention the standard patch that looked like it came out of a cereal box.

Personal Story Time-When I lived in California, I saw someone in the local mall wearing

-Jnco Jeans, standard issue HUGE

-a large,white plastic chain fashioned into a belt and wallet chain

-Stuffed Teletubbies clipped to the chain and dangling off of it.

The image is going to stay with me to the grave.



Jawa's after they shocked R2D2 in Episode IV



Yo-Yo's

I remember when Yo-Yo's were making a comeback in the 90's. A god damn yo-yo. People wonder why America is slipping behind other countries in terms of innovation, etc. It's because full grown adults were learning how to "walk the dog", and customizing the counter-balances in their yo-yo's instead of something productive.

Livestrong Bracelets

These bracelet/bands were all the rage a few years ago. I understand they helped raise a lot of money for cancer research, etc. But it's a little dystopian to see the majority of the populous wearing identical yellow bands everywhere they go.

Affliction T-Shirts

-I'm not sure how this trend got started, maybe from the MMA crowd. I don't think it was ever a good idea to have a look that was reminiscent of a Bedazzler, mixed in with Gothic symbols including skulls and gargoyles

Current "Trends"

Jersey Shore

I was entertained during the first season or so of Jersey Shore, but there is almost nothing on TV that is more repetitive. There is a big, thick line that many people cross. That line divides "Hey this show is funny, all they do is get drunk and fight" and "Hey this show is awesome, these people are awesome. I'm going to dress like them and say their phrases all the time!" I can't wait for a few years to go by, I know more than a few people will be trying to destroy any record of this time frame. What are we on, Season 3? Most shows don't make it 5 seasons, and they are already doing a spin off. MTV already screwed up enough culture with the TRL era, etc.

(Personal Note- It's a bad thing that I am going to a particular person's page to get more ideas of current, soon-to-be-dead trends to finish this post)

Dubstep

My problem isn't with actual dubstep music, but pretty much everything else surrounding it. This is going to burn out real soon, as far as a trend anyways. Right now, Dubstep has turned into a trend similar to previous music genre's, such as punk. Think about punk music. Think about people who listen to punk music. D-bags. A bunch of idiots should have popped into your head. However, a lot of punk music is very good but it is overshadowed by they bumbling simpletons who eventually ruin the genre so much you wouldn't want to say you listen to it for fear of association. As I mentioned in a previous post, I listen to a lot of different genres, which includes a lot of electronic music. Anything electronic that is edgy and might borrow some cadences here and there is now grouped in the "dupstep category", which is inaccurate and has turned it into a trend.

Just Google for dubstep images, or read the comments on some YouTube videos. "OMG THIS MELTED MY FACE OFF, DUBSTEP IS THE BEST" "Jesus died for our sins, and so we could enjoy dubstep"



People who are overexcited about anything, is usually a turnoff for me. Which is unfortunate. So everybody-chill out before you kill something people might enjoy!

P.S. I don't remember people walking around in the 70's with shirts that say "I LOVE GUITARS" "ROCK N' MOTHERF---ING ROLL" and "I LOVE BRITISH INVASION". chill out, everyone needs to chill out. Stop drinking 5 Hour Energies all the time.

P.P.S. I just came came up with an idea. It's going to a huge speaker cabinet, a person biting the head off a bird, and in big text "LISTEN TO BRITISH INVASION" on a black shirt. Don't steal my idea.

XIII- The President Gets Paid Money???

The President Gets Paid Money??? AKA Facebook Politics

I get paid roughly the NFL minimum to lead the free world

I'm sure most people have seen posts recently similar to this:

Salary of the US President = $400,000.
Salary of retired US Presidents = $180,000.
Salary of House/Senate = $174,000.
Salary of Speaker of House = $223,500.
Salary of Majority/Minority Leaders = $193,400.
......Average US Salary = $33,000 - $77,000
HELLO!!! I think we found where the cuts should be made!!
If you agree….REPOST!!!!

I am now going to rip this apart

This is an example of people re-posting something that seems to make sense, instead of doing critical thinking of any issues. Facebook politics are the worst. There are so many things wrong with this post, let alone this it is mixed in to a social forum where most posts consist of:
A. The weather B. What you just ate C. What you are doing this weekend D. Other (less then 10%)

Let's start with the math
Salary of the US President = $400,000.

Barack Obama gets $400,000.00 a year, for probably the worst job in America. CEO's of companies you have never heard of probably make more than $400,000/year. You don't even have to be the top dog at a a Large company, many CFO's, COO's, VP's of large companies make much more than 400k. I don't know any other job where you are seen as responsible for 300 million people, get blamed for everything going wrong in an entire country, and get slandered on national television 24/7, not to mention the complete lack of privacy or constant scrutiny about where you were born. For your entire term.

Total for president: $400,000.00

Salary of retired US Presidents = $180,000.

There are currently 4 U.S presidents still alive,
George Bush Jr. (2 terms)
Bill Clinton (2 terms)
George Bush Sr. (1 term)
Jimmy Carter (1 term) (barely)

I don't know about you, but this sounds like OK money. I don't really want ex-presidents, who should be held among the most distinguished in our society, living in high rise apartment buildings and bagging groceries to get benefits. Just because they are "retired", doesn't mean they don't do anything. Typically they lead lives that involve copious amounts of civic duty, give speeches, and generally try to promote "world peace".

Total for retired presidents: $720,000.00

Salary of House/Senate = $174,000.00

100 Senators (2 per state)
435 members of the House of Representatives (distributed to states based upon population)

Members of the Senate and House are appointed by each state to represent the citizens that have elected them. This includes voicing opinion, proposing/ supporting measures etc. in best interest of their constituents. If you want to cut the salary of people who are responsible for representing your state and interests fairly, be my guest. They are similar to a real estate agent of sorts, except that they don't make as much as top real estates.

Total for Senate AND House: $93,090,000.00
(535 members, representing 50 States/ 307+ million people)

Salary of Speaker of House = $223,500.00
This is a member of the House of representatives accounted for already, so he (John Boehner) gets paid for the additional responsibility, similar to a shift lead at McDonald's.

Total for Speaker of the house: $49,500.00 (additional)

Salary of Majority/Minority Leaders = $193,400.00

Majority/ Minority Leaders of the Senate : Harry Reid/ Mitch McConnell 
Majority/ Minority Leaders of the House: Eric Cantor/ Nancy Pelosi

Same deal as the Speaker of the House, these positions are compensated based on the increased responsibility. Generally, this is how jobs work in America.

Total for Majority/ Minority Leaders of the House/Senate: $185,600.00 (additional)

This brings our grand total to: $94,445,100.00

*Please note little to none fact checking was done for these salaries, simply taken straight across from the Facebook re-post in circulation.

Now I know what you are thinking. "OMG the President of the United States gets paid more than me? UNFAIR." Well, let's say you cut everyone of the aforementioned people's salaries in half. Forgot the part that if this was a business, and the CEO called up all the managers and said cut every one's pay in half, their would be strikes, walkouts, and would destroy the business. Forget that part.

That would equal a savings of ....$47.2 Million. For comparison, that would be equivalent to:

.0067% of the roughly $700 Billion dollars a year for defense spending. (Which is typically 10 times what the next highest NATO country spends on defense) Source: The Washington Post

Or, about 1/3 a modern Jet (F-22: $150 million, F-35 $156 Million)
Older Style jets, such as the Boeing Harrier II introduced in 1985, run a measly $35 million.

Enjoy your recession, PEW PEW PEW PEW

From CNN, 4/13/11:
"By virtually every measure, U.S. military spending, which rose 2.8%, leaves every other nation in the dust. The $698 billion it spent accounted for 43% of all the military spending in the world and was six times the amount expended by the No. 2 country, China. Military spending amounted to 4.8% of U.S. gross domestic product, compared to the world average of 2.6%."

Conclusion

So obviously, I am suggesting we need to cool it on the defense/ military spending instead of trying to vilify the people we vote into office and compensate fairly to represent our interests. Maybe. I decided to use jets as just an example, $150 million/ a jet doesn't even begin to scrape the surface. Most of those programs cost $50 billion and up just to get off the ground. Have you seen the new laser ray gun the military is trying out? I'm guessing that isn't cheap. Insanely deadly and scary, but not cheap. But still pretty cool.

What's interesting to me is how the Vice President escape this repost trend? That's right, I'm coming after you Joe Biden! After all, according to Wikipedia he makes $230,000/ year. If anyone gets paid too much, it's that guy. He's basically an intern, just moping around the white house saying "You're right, Barack!" , "What do you think, Barack?" and "GO GET 'EM". We're going to pay a guy a quarter mil to sit around, praying that the president takes a bullet? I've been trying to keep personal attacks/ taking political sides in this article, but I got a biiig problem with Joe Biden. This guy is one heartbeat away from being the leader of the free world and this guy drinks non-alcoholic beer. Puhhhhhhhh.

I had to share this picture of another vice president:

Caption from Wikipedia: "John C. Calhoun was the first Vice President to resign from office." Thank God. This guy looks like pure insanity. And he has 12 year old girl hands.


Later, Alligators!!!


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NEW MOUTH'S CRADLE EP! Released 4/13 (aka yesterday). 5 tracks, using clips from http://www.everythingisterrible.com/, a video website of the weirdest videos on the web.

"Why is everyone obeying???"  "Do the vegeboogie"
Download HERE

XII- Mouth's Cradle

Free mix tape recently released, but currently unavailable for download :( sad face

I decided to devote a new music post to a duo called Mouth's Cradle, because I really enjoy their music and they are definitely the "smallest" group/duo I listen to. How I heard of them is convoluted which I will explain below. As I mentioned in the previous music post, I am interested in how people hear of different artists and delve into different genres. If you share the same interest, you are in luck. If not, go pound sand!

I was sitting on a boat
floating down the Mis'sippi
down to New Orleans
where the girls are so pretty
got my glasses I'm out the door
I'm gonna hit this city
and on the radio all I heard
was "a milli, a milli"
so I got out a notebook
and wrote a rhyme of my own
I sang it over synthesizers
and a dial tone
but I was too scared to see if the people
liked it or not
so you know I missed out
on when that opportunity knocked
- "Opportunity Knocks"
 How I heard of Mouth's Cradle

I am a fairly active YouTube user, as I am sure a lot of people who have computers and Internet are. It is a great way to learn about different topics and check out some videos from people who share the same interests. I started checking out Modern Warfare 2 videos by a guy who goes by the name "Hutch". For those unfamiliar with the gaming YouTube family, Hutch now gets paid to play and comment on video games by the company Machinima. Hutch's personal channel is shaun0728. (For the record, my favorite YouTube gamer is seananners). At some point Hutch re-posted a video from a user name joehands0me. Joe is a video editor, and would take game play video from Modern Warfare 1 and edit it to music in a music video style which was amazing. The video that really pulled me in is Double Dare:



At this point I was like "this is awesome, SUBSCRIBBBBEEEE". Joe also, however, does a lot of projects not involving video games. Surprising, I know. After following him for a short period of time, he released a live action music video for Mouth's Cradle's "Demon", and the rest is history. It's funny that I just realised this video was posted about 9 months ago, which feels weird because of the amount I have listened to Mouth's Cradle.

The Band

Mouth's Cradle consists of two members, Mouf and Master Rodgers. It's safe to assume these are their stage names. They incorporate many different sounds and genres in a great blend, with clever and contemporary lyrics. They can pull off simpler/softer tracks, while maintaining an edge. What has really impressed me about Mouth's Cradle is the high production value of their tracks, and the great vocals. They write some pretty catchy choruses, as well as blend into some up-tempo raps. One of my favorite songs, New York Border, starts out:

crash my Maserati
too much gin and toddy
put my mask on like somebody stop me

but the coppers got me
put me in a padded cell
kind of like a players club for those who used to have it well

- "New York Border"

 

MC goes to Syracuse University (or least Moufy does), and seem to stay fairly local to the Northeast as far as shows go. Understandably. I would love to see these guys in person, but I don't see them coming to the Ory-gun anytime soon. On the bright side, new material is in the works. I am stoked. Their YouTube channel has a wide selection of the majority of their published tracks.

Recently, to promote the new music to be soon released, they have been "MC'ing" up fan photos for fun

Happy Listening!!!

fun link time!

Mouth's Cradle on Facebook

Mouth's Cradle on Youtube

Mouth's Cradle on Twitter

Gilbert Gottfried recently got fired from Aflac for making a Japan tsunami joke. However, double G has been doing this his whole career so what do you expect. He infamously made 9/11 jokes at the Hugh Hefner roast something like 10 days after it happened. Double G, btw, is the voice of the duck who screams "AFFFLAAAAACCCC". To parody this, he recently did a video with Funny or Die, called "Too Soon Gilbert Gottfried"

XI- Singularity

Welcome to the Robot

I recently discovered something awesome.Well, it depends on your definition of "awesome". It's called Technological Singularity, or "Singularity Theory". I had to share it. As I mentioned previously, I don't think there is a bigger self fulfilling prophecy then mankind creates it's own demise through technology (as opposed to pollution, 2012/Mayan calender, etc. theories). Let the nightmare begin!!!!

"A technological singularity is a hypothetical event occurring when technological progress becomes so rapid that it makes the future after the singularity qualitatively different and harder to predict."- Wikipedia

That doesn't sound to bad, but how about:

" Within thirty years, we will have the technological means to create superhuman intelligence. Shortly after, the human era will be ended."- Vernor Vinge, SDSU. Written in 1993

That sounds a little bleak. But more specifically:

"...a story that goes like this: one day in the not-so-distant future, the Internet will suddenly coalesce into a super-intelligent A.I., infinitely smarter than any of us individually and all of us combined; it will become alive in the blink of an eye, and take over the world before humans even realize what’s happening.
Some think the newly sentient Internet would then choose to kill us; others think it would be generous and digitize us the way Google is digitizing old books, so that we can live forever as algorithms inside the global brain."-Jaron Lainer, New York Times

OH MY GOD! WE'RE ALL GOING TO DIE!

Not necessarily. But probably.

Computers are our loyal friends, like a good lap dog! How would this happen?

"Although technological progress has been accelerating, it has been limited by the basic intelligence of the human brain, which has not, according to Paul R. Ehrlich, changed significantly for millennia.^[10] However with the increasing power of computers and other technologies, it might eventually be possible to build a machine that is more intelligent than humanity.^[11] If superhuman intelligences were invented, either through the amplification of human intelligence or artificial intelligence, it would bring to bear greater problem-solving and inventive skills than humans, then it could design a yet more capable machine, or re-write its source code to become more intelligent. This more capable machine then could design a machine of even greater capability. These iterations could accelerate, leading to recursive self improvement, potentially allowing enormous qualitative change before any upper limits imposed by the laws of physics or theoretical computation set in."-Wikipedia

Praise thy CPU!

Singularity theory is referred to constantly as a "technology" religion of sorts, kind of like a 1's and 0's End of Days. But what is most disturbing about the notion of the coming singularity, in my opinion, can be boiled down to three things:

Singularity Theory is:
1. Based in science (which, unlike Scientology, which is surprisingly not based on science but instead around an alien Jesus being trapped in an electric mountain prison)

2. Already happening. As talked about in Jaron Lainer's NY Times article:
"That is, people perform machine-like activity, copying and relaying information; the Internet, as a whole, is claimed to perform the creative thinking, the problem solving, the connection making. This is a devaluation of human thought."
The more automation, the more computer algorithms that we use, the more the power balance has been shifted to computers. We are the drones that carry out the simple, arduous tasks.

3. Unpredictable. A key component of singularity theory is "the turning point". Once society and technology hit this point, which is inherently hard to predict, that the change will be rapid and unpredictable

Conclusion

All the great inventions in the world today are limited by the power of the human mind. Even the intelligent computer models that help us do things from manage power systems, map DNA, to predict extreme weather patterns, are inherently limited to some extent because they can be linked back to human creators. Despite the complexity, vastness, and diversity of what has been created, there are human specialists (mathematicians, engineers, chemists, etc.) that are involved in the process and know how processes and inventions operate and why they work. A great portion of our inventions took lifetimes to create.

What the singularity represents is the outcome when that string of limitation is cut, and when their is no specialization. Oh, and "AIs could have other uses for the scarce resources mankind uses to survive." Like oxygen.

Have a great week!

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NY Times Article, "First Church of Robotics"
How to Find Aliens, DUHHHH!!!!!!