happy halloween!

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tuva rap

i love the sound of tibetan throat singing monks, though i’m not as familiar with their cousins the tuvan throat singers.

here tuvan great ondar revisions throat singing for the modern west:

feynman is in the background samples

blackwater has a warship?

so the somali privateers are being countered by private warships now, lloyd’s list — a maritime news portal — is reporting that the private security firm blackwater is sending their own warship to the somali coast to guard the transportation corridor, along with ships from india, russia, and other countries.

a private firm has a warship? i guess this is not news historically, but it just reminds me so much of a william gibson novel. if gibson’s dystopia future holds, next AT&T will buy attack helicopters to prevent employee defections; or they’ll just hire blackwater. apparently wired also reported on the new ship a year ago.

it’s not easy being green

for some reason when i’m saddened, i find solace in things that are sad. after my first major breakup, i listened to the saddest song i could find on a loop. when i feel lonely, i tend to avoid other people. i’m not inspired to reach out as much as lick my wounds in private. i’m not sure why, do you do this too? i guess i’m more of a sleep it off kind of guy.

this video of big bird singing at jim henson’s funeral may make you teary.

thinking about oscar

i just learned friend shannon’s little kitteh isn’t doing so well. he has cancer, and not much time left. please include them in your thoughts and practice.

in support of creative commons

jesse dylan created this video explaining creative commons licenses, really excellent:

i’m not a graphic, audio, or video designer. but the small degree to which i’ve created those kinds of media i’m already feeling more empowered because of the amount of stock style material i can find with creative commons licenses or free licenses. it wasn’t like that just a few years ago, but now i can search and often find something usable.

the other man on the podium

the bbc news ran a story today about peter norman, the silver medalist from australia in this famous 1968 olympics protest. i had heard about the protest, but i had not yet heard how he supported the two protesting american athletes, tommie smith and john carlos. the athletes had forgotten their black gloves, the gloves in the picture were norman’s. norman is also wearing the same equal rights badge. after this medal ceremony he spoke out about the white australia policy not yet made illegal.

tommie and john were banned from the olympic village and criticized widely. for supporting the protest, norman was criticized in the press and prevented from representing australia in future olympics — in spite of qualifying and was the only australian former olympic athlete omitted from participating in the 2000 sydney olympic opening ceremonies. but the US team embraced him in 2000, the bbc reports that hurdling legend ed moses greeted him at the door to the US team lodging, the US team gave him a place to stay during the games, and that year’s 200m champion michael johnson hugged him and told him, “you are my hero.”

you can read the bbc story and the links above for more details.

mit profs on the financial crisis

five mit professors of economics and business had a panel discussion recently concerning the financial crisis. the summary is quite good if you only have a minute. the web case (requires windoze media player) is linked to from the summary. the web cast has many more interesting observations though is tricky to follow unless you’re familiar with the terminology already.

splitting my blog

i’ve been blogging since april of 2003. and my interests have migrated but somewhat settled on three topics: design / professional, personal, and meditation related. but lately i’ve encountered some writers block, perhaps because those three categories are so disparate i don’t know who my audience might be for any given post.

focus? naw… let’s splinter instead into three blogs and subscribe to just the topics you’re actually interested in. if you stumbled here, use the tabs across the top to discover the other now separate blogs.

this site will host my personal thoughts and things for friends and welcome visitors. i’ve mirrored my design posts and my meditation related posts to separate blogs now, you’ll find those using the tabs above or clicking on these:

http://owlmonkey.com/design/
http://owlmonkey.com/meditate/

not a good time to be a cowboy

joi ito published these sets from sequoia capital on startup companies and the economic downturn. i was wondering what the venture world thought the next couple years would be like. bottom line: tighten belts, get cash positive, don’t expect followup rounds of funding. looks like a tough time to be starting a business - at least a tough time to be starting one with venture money - or keeping one going. but that might mean it’s a great time to be starting one that is on the cheap and doesn’t require large capitalization until things recover.