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grinderbot:

One of the consistent myths of pro wrestling is the concept of the “face” and the “heel” – the good guy and the bad guy. Within the consensus reality of the Kayfabe, these are mortal foes… right up to the point where one or the other makes a “heel-face turn”, the good guy becoming the bad or vice versa. (Like, say, the ‘heroic rebels’ of the CIA-sponsored Mujahideen becoming the post-9/11 enemy…) But in reality, they’re still just performers in a symbolic, mythical struggle. Whether they consciously co-operate or not, both sides need the struggle in order to continue their identity, to define their reality. So, again – who profits? Those invested – emotionally, financially – in the game, on both supposed sides. The extremists; the governments who seek any excuse to cow the populous, to keep every single person scared and surveilled; the radicals who want to tear down anything that doesn’t look exactly like their fantasy world (be it Dar-al-Islam or Rule Britannia); the corporations that sell the weapons to them all or, like Monsanto, rely on the distraction to conceal their agenda. And, by pure coincidence, those who want to tame the internet, to stop those who don’t want to suffer for their gain from finding out more about the truth behind the spectacle. Anyone who wants to play another game, wants a future of co-operation not competition, strength for all instead of profit-and-loss… are just collateral damage for the drones and the thugs. John Robb doesn’t write about 4GW directly that much, these days. In his consideration of precisely how one should defend against it, he came to understand the necessity of working towards the living conditions which are most effective in resisting terrorism in general and such cheap RoI attacks in particular – decentralized infrastructure, local and networked co-operation unlocked from hierarchy. People acting in groups sharing common goals, working towards long-term building of resilient communities rather than zero-sum enemies to be obliterated. A long-term solution that strives to bypass the reflexive tit-for-tat of this conflict, to benefit all. As I wrote this, the EDL marched on Whitehall. Again, only a couple of hundred of them, faced with a similar number of anti-fascist protesters. Supposed patriots are giving Nazi salutes and fighting police in the very heart of British governance, claiming to be protecting England against the infidel. Another front in The Forever War opened these past few days… and for those who aren’t part of the kayfabe, who strive to break past the fourth wall of us-and-them, resilience is becoming that much harder. We have to keep looking for the tools to grind our bodies, minds and tribes to be strong and flexible enough to endure the crushing pressures of these wrestling behemoths, to always remember that whoever appears to be the face or the heel… this should not, cannot be just war. It must always be a rescue mission. (via grinding.be » Blog Archive » Special Guest Post from the UK: Cat Vincent brings us “Rate Of Return: Woolwich, 4GW and Kayfabe.”)

Meanwhile, great guest post from @CatVincent on Woolwich attack and Fourth Generation Warfare

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brucesterling:

Dear Yahoo! userbase:

   It has not escaped the attention of  new management that, yes, I now possess 30,000 Tumblr followers.   

     Thirty-thousand of you!  That’s pretty massive, eh? Wow!

      What’s more, I have also been a loyal Flickr user ever since January 2005 — “Flickr” being an obscure, formerly with-it Yahoo! photo-sharing site where I have over a million page-views. Over there at Yahoo! Flickr, they still count in pages.  Millions, but pages.

     With these elite credentials, I was quickly recruited for some R&D work on Yahoo!’s fully-consolidated Tumblr-Flickr service, “Tumblickr.” Yes, I’ll be helping to create the new, conceptual, diegetic  services that the rest of you will some day enjoy!

      What’s more, you people — my mighty legion of thirty thousand followers — are the very first people to hear early warnings from the leaky Tumblickr development R&D lab.   You’ll notice that the “heart” and “forward” commands have been disabled for this exclusive news post.  Do not attempt to use those grayed-out commands!  Violations of the new terms-of-service will be swiftly noticed and permanently recorded, and offenders may well be deprived of their obligatory Yahoo! log-in.

       1.  Automatic image enhancement.  Any group photo featuring a “Tumblickr Pro” (formerly called “Flickr Pro”)  will be automatically groomed for elite user benefit.  This means red-eye removal, gray hair re-colored, bent shoulders straightened, sagging features sharpened, unseemly wrinkles shooped out of their 1980s-style clothing, etc.   

       The opposite applies to the dead weight of the 47% Tumblr “taker” underclass, who will be depicted as even youthier, grimier and more downmarket than they already are.

        2. The new “Ignore + Throttle” feature.  Newbies, trolls, teens, cat-fanciers and other vermin who annoy a “Tumblickr Pro” will still suffer the useful, time-honored Tumblr “ignore” command.  However, randomized DDOS lag-moments of three to fifteen seconds duration will also be introduced into the service connections of these offending parties.  This is an innovative service of “Unit 63198,” our new Chinese Tumblickr offshore support battalion. 

      3.   Automatic Mobility Filtering.   Tumblr users are notorious for posting from “mobiles.”  These  cheap, careless Android snapshots are easy to distinguish from  genuine camerawork, linked through top-end Apple desktop media-production units, owned and deployed by those of us who can still think differently enough to take real digital photographs.  

       Our new Tumblickr feature allows us to filter-out these low-net-worth “mobile” vagrants, especially those who lack any mortgage or a retirement plan.  These way-too-mobile insta-bums will henceforth be gently guided into a “Tumblickr Favela” where they can pay in Bitcoins and be seen only by their own kind.

      Here at Tumblickr R&D Central, we’re soliciting further input about our services from our users — but for God’s sake, not from just anybody.  Do not send us email. We own the Big Database now.   We already know who you are.  If you’re likely to do anything useful for us,  we’ll know that long before you do.

Forward to 40,000!

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brucesterling:

*The nature of the mid-21st century.  You can tell we’re getting there, because we get a little older, a little bigger, and quite a lot more scared of the sky, with every passing week.

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bookhling:

outlawpoet:

bookhling:

m1k3y:

And you shall know us by our external battery packs.

Or replacement batteries sticking out of pockets

The first android phone to have a small internal capacitor and replacement batteries you can slap into it like an extra magazine will win my eternal allegiance.

Oh my god that would be so awesome

So I’m not the only one walking around, hand at the hip, ready to draw my phone then 🙂

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