confusion

Bait and switch, like verbal slight-of-hand is one of the primary tools of politics and advertising… you should already be scared. It’s a sad state of affairs, and anymore it’s hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys ’cause they all play the same game by the same rules; coercion as needed to meet the party line.

So, today I came across a link to an info-visual about the upsides of legalizing marijuana [sloshspot.com]. Nice, nice, I totally agree that we need to rethink the whole marijuana is illegal thing and I’m on the “Amsterdam model” side of the debate, though I want to see more debate before I make up my mind. But wait… what is this uncouth bait and switch with the statistics:

All the information on the info-visual references statistics that are marijuana specific… except the statistics in big ass green used to shock people… That $14.1 billion says Will be spent to reduce drug use and availability in 2009, (emphasis mine). But drug use implies more than just marijuana. This is the kind of dishonest behavior that makes me not like people in politics (and advertising) regardless of if I agree with their stance or ideas (or like their products.)

And let’s not mention that you can make statistics say anything you want, so this kind of cheating should be unnecessary. And always remember that 63% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

Finally as a complete aside… I know some of the people that would be contributing to that $20 million for Virginia! You know who you are! “Puff puff, give. Puff puff, give. You fuckin’ up the rotation!”

Live blogging the Bob Madden simminar… Just ’cause he asked how many people were.

“Capture the Heart of the Moment”

Photos very impressive. Being a long time Nat Geo reader I think I’ve seen most of them.

I think 90% of the people here are from Club Snap, a local Singapore photographers club.

Ok enough live blogging… Now to pay attention to the talk.

Ok, he just said something very important: decide before you go if you are going as a tourist or a photographer.

Very important, in reality most of the trips I take are somewhere in between. I want to take photos, but those with me are mostly just tourists. So I have a few minutes to take photos not all the time I need to get ‘the shot’.

Most of my photos from my first trip to Japan show this. I could have taken a lot better photos it I spent much more time. But the other guys were just taking snapshots… And there is always more to see. In the end, photography is one of my hobbies —but travel is one of my passions. I want to see more, just like my friends. So I take the photos I can and don’t annoy my fellow travelers.

I know Google is a whore for ad revenue, but how did that happen? Advertising your competitors products on your product page?

Cisco should offer all delegates of the upcoming Copenhagen Convention [unfccc.int] free telepresence systems. Great publicity for Cisco and how can people discussing how to stop human influenced climate change refuse a technology that allows them to not fly and produce all the carbon associated with that?