Wired Again
Okay, so this week on wired I read about mars rovers, censorship, and what I found most intriguing, eternal life. Here’s my question: why does a nihilistic self-proclaimed atheist want to live any longer than he already has to? If his goal is to live until he finally discovers the meaning of life there is plenty of time to do that in most lifetimes. Ironically to provide him with his longevity that he longs for he seeks to conduct research on very young, undeveloped humans. All this is to say there is little here on earth truly worth sticking around indefinitely for. I am not saying that there are not pursuits worth dedicating time and energy to but what makes any one person worth keeping around longer than the rest of us? Well, I guess I have put more questions here than answers but here is what it all breaks down to.

Pop-culture tells us that there is no truth, that God is dead, and that we are simply a product of some unsubstantiated evolutionary process involving processes that are more far-fetched then the idea of Kevin Costner saving a flooded world from disaster. We cannot make statements about others for fear that we will be labeled as criminals of hate. I apologize for cultural taboos that may be here broken but living longer so that promotion of a decedent society can be perpetuated seems like the least noble cause, and I happen to be one to believe in nobility. Thus, forget your riches, forget what this world can do to promote your ego and look to see what your knowledge and skill can do to truly help the world (a novel concept if the world has ever heard one). Anyway, this did have something to do with technology, but it’s a stretch I know…at least I’m thinking.

The Arc Choir

Okay, here is one thing that I would really like to be able to do here on this blog, music reviews. This week, The Arc Choir's "Walk With Me" album [more info].

This album is great and is perfect for February, Black History Month. This collection of gospel music is performed by the Arc Choir, the Addicts Rehabilitation Center Gospel Choir. It is truely amazing. Here is what Fred Kaplan wrote in 1997 concerning the ARC choir.

"Before you slip on The ARC Gospel Choir's Walk With Me [Mapleshade], be forewarned: this is no soothing daisyfield of New Age serenity. ARC stands for the Addicts Rehabilitation Center of East Harlem, its singers are former druggies whose souls were wrested from the flames of hell by the Hand of Jesus, and they want you to know the joy of their redemption. This is raw, raucous stuff, thirty-two proud, strong voices crooning, hollering, and sweetly harmonizing as if at the portals of Heaven's gate, hands clapping, feet stomping, swaying to the tough-love discipline of a tight ensemble order. Pierre Sprey, Mapleshade's proprietor-engineer, captures every ounce of it, with an analogue tape recorder and three PZM microphones — a pair mounted on either side of his custom Plexiglas wedge, another single mic lightly spotlighting the basses. Hamiett Bluiett, the baritone saxophone player who has produced several Mapleshade discs, led Sprey to the choir and to the church where he recorded them. As Sprey says in the liner-notes, "The acoustics were just right for recording a choir: warm and reverberant but crystal clear so that individual voices wouldn't be lost in a haze of murky echo." You've got a front-pew seat at the Kelly Temple Church of God in Christ, the dynamics quake and thunder, and even a heathen like me can't help but be inspired. "

Check it out.

For T452
www.bencrum.com
The Soon to be Updated BC Online
Okay so I don't think this would really count has posting a blog entry, but I did want to have this up here so that everyone can check out BC Online, my personal web-site and soon to be portfolio. There are however two articles that I was reading tonight that I thought were great. First is this one from Wired in which I find that people actually believe in some scams that go around online. I find it hard to believe that some of this email scams actually work but I guess if you find a wealthy enough dumb person it might just fly (I would recomend scamming Hollywood CA in that case). The second article comes from the best News source on the web, The Onion, okay so this one has nothing to do with technology but I think this whole Atkins thing is a joke, so enjoy.