We are developing the social individualist meta-context for the future. From the very serious to the extremely frivolous... lets see what is on the mind of the Samizdata people.
Samizdata, derived from Samizdat /n. - a system of clandestine publication of banned literature in the USSR [Russ.,= self-publishing house]
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I do not understand how this works, but it sounds like fun, or at any rate like a ripple of the future:
A band from Germany has adopted a novel approach to getting their music heard by millions.
Super Smart have turned their backs on vinyl and CDs and instead have decided to just release their album as ringtones.
The album, Panda Babies, is published by a German company that focuses on digital music for mobile phones.
So if there’s there is no CD, what does the word “album” mean in this connection? And, if Super Smart are a “band”, what is a Super Smart live gig like? A bunch of Germans waving their portable phones at the audience?
The identity of the four-piece from Munich is shrouded in mystery and in photos they appear with giant panda heads.
“Shrouded in mystery” presumably means that Super Smart is actually one person, and anybody can be a Panda for the photo shoots. The individual, by wearing a uniform, is subordinated to the Greater Whole, dominated by one “Super Smart” individual. Germans eh? – they never change. But I suppose much the same could be said of the Wombles.
I have yet to acquire a mobile phone, so none of this will make any difference to me. But I do have some questions. For example: Can mobile phone music play more than one note at a time, or is it like solo violin music without any double stopping? How long can it go on for? Is any of it any good?
And can I buy a compilation CD of mobile phone Greatest Hits?
The thing I really like and admire about capitalism is its attention to detail, made possible by the division of labour. While we Samizdatistas get sucked into Political Class worries – like the EU and the Iraq War, overpopulation, underpopulation, etc. – capitalism continues to crank out solutions to problems so small that they can actually to be solved. Someone, somewhere (actually: Canada!), instead of worrying about the Iraq War (over which, he probably decided, he had no influence), has instead been worrying about bananas and how to guard them.
Consider this problem:
Are you fed up with bringing bananas to work or school only to find them bruised and squashed? …
I know I am. I have lost count of the number of times I have done damage to a bagful of Important Things, as a result of a neglected banana at the bottom of everything which I put there three days ago and then forgot about. But what to do? Bananas taste nice. You never know when a banana in your bag might come in handy.
So how do you stop it being crushed and becoming a sticky, destructive mess, dangerous to everything around it? Well, when a capitalist asks an arkward question like the one above, you just know that he will very soon start in on the answer, and this capitalist is no different:
… Our unique, patented device allows for the safe transport and storage of individual bananas letting you enjoy perfect bananas anytime, anywhere.
A perfect banana. Tell me more.
The Banana Guard was specially designed to fit the vast majority of bananas. Its other features include multiple small perforations to facilitate ventilation thereby preventing premature ripening and a sturdy locking mechanism to keep the Banana Guard closed. The Banana Guard is of course dishwasher safe for easy cleaning.
Of course. Small perforations. There goes that attention to detail.
You can get your Banana Guard in an impressive range of colours, namely: Ravishing Red, Outrageous Orange, Mellow Yellow, Sublime Green, Skyhigh Blue, Brilliant Blue, Passionate Purple, Pretty in Pink, and Glow in the Dark.
My thanks to this Monkey.
I refuse to pay more than about £100 to sit in a tube for several hours, no matter how far it travels or how interesting the place at the far end, and even if they let me sit by the window and look at the clouds and, with extreme luck, at the beginning and the end of the journey, some actual views of earth. So until now, and given that no one else has thought it worth paying for me to visit, I have resigned myself to never actually seeing the (now sadly truncated) towers of Manhattan and the depths of the Grand Canyon (to name the two American things I most want to see before I die), plus whatever else American has to offer, such as those peculiar shaped small mountains in the desert wherever those things are, nice people, Carnegie Hall, an NFL football game, etc. But now, via the invaluable Transport Blog “In Brief” section (April 28th), I have come across this:
Transatlantic flights for as little as £60 could soon be available under a deal being forged between a German airport and US carriers.
The managing director of Cologne-Bonn airport, Michael Garvens, says he has been negotiating for several weeks to establish the service, which would take low-cost travel into a new realm.
Under the proposals, carriers such as Hapag-Lloyd Express and Germanwings would fly passengers from Cologne-Bonn to New York, Chicago and other destinations in America and Canada for as little as £60 per stretch. The deal would require passengers to pay for refreshments and to book online.
“We are currently holding concrete discussions with American carriers,” said an airport spokesman. The airport said its goal was to combine the strengths of budget airlines.
Concrete discussions, no less. (Interesting that “concrete” in this connection means a discussion that is actually going somewhere. Often “concrete”, applied to conversations, means the opposite of that.)
Two possibilities suggest themselves. Either Cologne-Bonn to America will shortly be followed by (e.g.) Stansted to America, or Stansted to Cologne-Bonn by Ryanair or scumbagair or reallyeasyjet or gojet or whatever can be stuck on the front of the journey, and I could be in the USA for something around or not far above my £100 limit.
The world is getting smaller.
So, now, who will pay my American hotel bill and cab fares, or put me in their spare room and feed me for a fortnight, having collected me from the airport? Some pocket money would be nice. A few speaking engagements (but not too many), some TV and radio appearances in which I can air my opinions to the American masses and become an instant celebrity, maybe some girl friends for the duration (see the Kris Marshall scenes in Love Actually for details), …
Who will start the bidding? America is the land of opportunity, right? So America: prove it. Show me some opportunities. (And please: no “we will pay this much for you to stay at home” nonsense. Well, actually, yes, that might be good too.)
Personally I do not know what to make of the referendum we are now promised about the EU constitution. Will the forces of darkness triumph, or will it be: NO!?
Patrick Crozier has no such doubts. In 1975, the verdict was Yes, but this time, he says, it will be different:
- We know what the EU is like.
- Then all the main political parties were in favour. Now they are not.
- Then most of the papers were in favour. Now most of them are not.
- Then, our economy was a laughing stock. Now it is the rest of Europe that has the problem
- Then, most businessmen were in favour. Now things are much closer.
- Although I don’t know what it was like then, now there are plenty of celebs prepared to endorse a “No” campaign.
Setting aside the matter of why he thinks Blair has decided to hold this referendum (and here is another explanation), is Patrick right? I want to believe him, but do I?
I have the feeling that the people writing this blog are not quite so confident, or why would they bother?
Further to this posting here, here is Instapundit on the same subject:
I DON’T KNOW WHETHER Amazon is going to replace brick-and-mortar merchants, but I notice that I’m buying more and more stuff from them. And in a related development, my wife heard from a real-estate person that small commercial-office space is in a glut because a lot of people are running their businesses out of their home, given the ease of doing so that comes from the combination of Internet, cellphones, and UPS. I suspect that there’s more of this kind of thing going on under the radar.
The point about UPS is interesting, I think.
There are lots of good reasons why working at home all round the clock is difficult. Add up all these reasons and you have the answer to the question: Why do “offices” exist? But there is especially potent reason, at any rate here in Britain with its particular sort of postal system, why working at home is easier, and that is that you are actually at home when the man from UPS (or whoever) knocks on your door with a parcel that is too big and valuable looking to just leave lying around outside. → Continue reading: There are other reasons for working at home besides the miseries of travelling
I have only just noticed this. But I agree with it, and I think the point is good enough to last way longer than a fortnight. It is from our own Natalie Solent on what to do about hostage taking:
Iraqi gunmen of the Mujahideen Brigades, a previously unknown group, have taken three Japanese citizens captive and say that Japan must pull out its troops or the prisoners will be burned alive.
Well, it worked in Spain. It worked in Somalia. The question is, do we keep it working?
I say, no. Kill the Muhajideen brigades. God willing the hostages might be saved, but if they are killed too, better a bullet than being burned alive and better a world where they die thus than one where the tactic of threatening hostages with death by torture works. As I said in January when Israel more-than-foolishly released many terrorists in exchange for an Israeli hostage, “Yes, of course I’d feel and speak very differently if it was my relative held hostage. Do you think I’m made of stone? But what is that to the purpose?” Think not only of the hostage we see now but of the next, and the next, and the next – because unless war is waged and won on this tactic, that is what there will be.
Whenever I line up next to, or myself say, things like this, I recall Saki’s phrase about the reckless courage of the non-combatant. As Natalie asks, what if a relative of hers were a hostage? What if she was? What if I was?
Nevertheless, I truly believe that she is right, and there is no future in giving in to these people, and not too abysmal a hope of a present for any hostages if the captors and their fortress are stormed rather than negotiated with.
Feeling cheerful? Have a read of this:
In a new book, Bare Branches: Security Implications of Asia’s Surplus Male Population (MIT Press), Valerie M. Hudson and Andrea M. den Boer warn that the spread of sex selection is giving rise to a generation of restless young men who will not find mates. History, biology, and sociology all suggest that these “surplus males” will generate high levels of crime and social disorder, the authors say. Even worse, they continue, is the possibility that the governments of India and China will build up huge armies in order to provide a safety valve for the young men’s aggressive energies.
“In 2020 it may seem to China that it would be worth it to have a very bloody battle in which a lot of their young men could die in some glorious cause,” says Ms. Hudson, a professor of political science at Brigham Young University.
With luck, if the two armies do go to war, it will be against each other.
Apart from that, what is the answer? Homosexuality via genetic modification, administered with magic gamma rays beamed in by satellites? Male death, ditto? An immediate plan by someone to test-tube a lot of girls, now? Polyandry? When confronting such a problem we generally find that the answers have a way of mutating into grisly restatements of the problem. How can we avoid …?
In the words of Noel Coward, there are, as always, bad times just around the corner, although that song (recently covered with what appear to be somewhat rehashed words by Robbie Williams) was originally only about places like Kettering (where I believe this Samizdatista lives), Hull and the isle of (because it rhymes with Hull) Mull.
I’ve just been relaxing in front of the telly watching a show called Fifth Gear, on Channel 5. This show was preceded by another automobile-based show about “Building the Ultimate …” in this case, building the ultimate racing car. (Although, luckily for me, given my actual tastes, I switched back to BBC4 TV in time to witness this amazing boy doing his thing.)
Trouble is, what with speed cameras and satellite snooping systems and politicians who just plane hate cars, except for themselves to be driven about in, there are fewer and fewer places where you can drive these monsters in the manner intended by nature.
So, Fifth Gear went looking for the answer, and they came up with Race Resort Ascari. (Either that or they were told about the answer, and they stitched the question onto the front.) The Race Resort Ascari website is long on atmospheric photography and on self-importantly waffly abstractions (“The best part of beauty is that which no picture can express” – Sir Francis Bacon) and short, as befits the website for a super-luxury product, on trivia like what it is and what it costs to buy it, so I will have to describe this place myself, based on what Fifth Gear showed. Basically what Race Resort Ascari means is that now, you can not only own an ultimate racing car; you can actually drive one at its ultimate speed, around a privately owned race track. You can now go on holiday and drive your car at two hundred miles per hour, just like in the car advers on the telly. And if that palls, you can have a go with one of the other cars they have there permanently. A grand prix car? No problem. A finely tuned rally car? Step inside and foot down.
Financially, obviously, this is one of those “if you have to ask you can not afford it” deals. (I think I heard the figure of £100,000 mentioned.) Personally I would never spend my money this way no matter how much I had. But even so, I salute the principle.
The next step is for someone to build a money-no-object private road which does not just go around in a circuit in the one little lump of land, but on which you can actually go from somewhere to somewhere else, and the further apart these somewheres are the better.
At two hundred miles an hour. In your car. Yours not mine, for once again, I would not be queueing up for this service any more than I now want to spend any time at Race Resort Ascari. Nevertheless, that I would love to see. That I would love to share a planet with.
This story is already being well bounced around the blogosphere. Let me give it another bounce. Here is what Jacob Sullum of Reason online says:
Although prosecutors admitted Paey was not a drug trafficker, on April 16 he received a mandatory minimum sentence of 25 years for drug trafficking. That jaw-dropping outcome illustrates two sadly familiar side effects of the war on drugs: the injustice caused by mandatory minimum sentences and the suffering caused by the government’s interference with pain treatment.
Paey, a 45-year-old father of three, is disabled as a result of a 1985 car accident, failed back surgery, and multiple sclerosis. Today, as he sits in jail in his wheelchair, a subdermal pump delivers a steady, programmed dose of morphine to his spine. But for years he treated his pain with Percocet, Lortab (a painkiller containing the narcotic hydrocodone), and Valium prescribed by his doctor in New Jersey, Steven Nurkiewicz.
Insane.
I got to this by going to Instapundit and then to National Review.
War on drugs: insane; the blogosphere: sane.
I think I smell another variant of the real-work-unreal-work fallacy. You know the one I mean. It said, a few centuries ago, that making real, edible food was real work, but fiddling about with bits of metal was unreal. Then when fiddling about with metal starting to move to faraway places, fiddling about with metal (especially if it was heavy enough or hot enough to do you serious damage if you mishandled it) was real, but shovelling paper this way and that was unreal.
But now, hear this, a comment from Neal of Margate on a BBC report about the rise in Britain of working at home, made possible by the rise of broadband. I have already commented on this report at my Education Blog, because it will surely make home education easier, but that is another story. Here is Neal of Margate:
This infuriating subject is back, is it? Please do tell me, how should dustmen work from home? Street sweepers, can they work from home? Factory workers? District nurses? Casualty department staff?
The only people who can work from home are those who do an unnecessary job. Can surgeons work from home? Ambulance drivers? Firemen? If you can work from home full time, you have a pointless job.
Maybe not, yet. (Although, give it a century or two …) But an offshore banker can work for the whole world from a West Indian island, on the beach, let alone at his mere home. But according to Neal, pure information manipulation counts for nothing. It has to be combined with, you know, doing something.
This Neal character has just got to be rabidly anti-capitalist. You couldn’t believe in the benefits of markets and of the division of labour and believe stuff as daft as this.
So, it is good to know that something as seemingly benign as some people being able to get a day’s work done without spending a couple of hours of what is left of the day stuck in traffic jams or crammed into metal tubes makes this particular anti-capitalist’s brain hurt.
Today I bought a great book in a remainder shop. It is a year by year history of London, strong on strange and intriguing events, not heavy with the theorising. Lovely.
It is a blogger’s delight. I have already culled three postings from it – two for here and a ‘how very odd’ posting here.
Here is another fascinatingly odd factoid, entry number six for the year 1729:
WIFE-SELLING IN THE CITY
It was reported that ‘Last Wednesday one Everet, of Fleet Lane sold his wife to one Griffin of Long Lane for 3 shilling bowl of punch; who, we hear, have since complained of having a bad bargain.’
A salutary reminder that ‘Christian’ men could be fairly primitive to Christian women, not so long ago. Many Muslims still are, of course. But if we Christians can mend our ways, they surely can too.
Every few days, with this in mind, I trawl through whatever google has to offer under the heading of “education”. Mostly, it is dreary and depressing stuff about how (a) things are terrible, and (b) it is all the fault of those other bastards, or (if it is Africa) (a) things are terrible, and (b) things are terrible. Only when it comes to Chinese people or Indian people is the education news ever very good by the time national newspapers get hold of it, and of course that only depresses other people.
So, this story made a nice change:
The quality of education and behaviour of pupils at Probus Primary School have been praised by Government inspectors.
Ofsted inspectors highlighted children’s good behaviour and attitudes towards learning and the partnership with parents and the local community.
The report notes the improvements made since the last inspection and concludes that achievement is satisfactory overall and standards are rising.
It said: “Probus is providing a sound education for its pupils. There is good teaching through the school. The school is well led and managed and there is a good partnership with parents. There is a good team ethos and members of staff are supportive of each other.
“Pupils are well cared for and those with special educational needs make good progress.”
What this really illustrates is probably only that whereas national newspapers like bad news, local newspapers prefer good news. The national newspaper definition of news is: whatever someone does not want printed. Local newspapers are such that whatever someone does not want printed tends not to get printed, because that someone plus all their employees and friends and relatives add up to a significant slice of the readership. Thus, local newspapers are full of sickeningly satisfactory happenings, where everything went according to plan and everyone was happy and satisfied with the outcome. The news, every time is: our readers are good people, successful people, happy people.
There is occasionally bad news, so bad that its occurrence cannot be concealed, in which case the story is how nobly our readers are coping with the situation, but on the whole, there is simply not enough bad news to go round.
Britain as a whole cranks out enough misery, conflict and personal embarrassment per day to satisfy the nationals, and of course the nationals also have a whole world of misery to contemplate beyond their nation’s borders.
But Truro and Mid Cornwall, the area reported on by the newspaper that supplied this Probus Primary School story, is just too nice a place for all the news to be bad.
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Who Are We? The Samizdata people are a bunch of sinister and heavily armed globalist illuminati who seek to infect the entire world with the values of personal liberty and several property. Amongst our many crimes is a sense of humour and the intermittent use of British spelling.
We are also a varied group made up of social individualists, classical liberals, whigs, libertarians, extropians, futurists, ‘Porcupines’, Karl Popper fetishists, recovering neo-conservatives, crazed Ayn Rand worshipers, over-caffeinated Virginia Postrel devotees, witty Frédéric Bastiat wannabes, cypherpunks, minarchists, kritarchists and wild-eyed anarcho-capitalists from Britain, North America, Australia and Europe.
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