How to make powerful hallucinogens from ordinary household chemicals.

[reddragdiva]

Oh, Google+. The only thing you had to do to win was not be Facebook. You're making them look good. At least joining Facebook doesn't risk your email.

I am on holiday. Freda is as well, so things are somewhat less relaxing than they would be otherwise. The kitten mostly doesn't shit places it shouldn't.

"Anarchism is a political philosophy which considers the state undesirable, unnecessary, and harmful ... Any information relating to anarchists should be reported to your local Police." (PDF.) "I am not an anarchist, but I find I quite like the ones I've met. Am I in danger of holding potentially illegal political views? Please advise."

(My actual problem with anarchism is that I'm the sort of arsehole who eventually takes power just at sheer frustration with their faff. Of the wide variety of strains of ideologically sound thinkers I've interacted with, no-one does faff like anarchists. No-one.)

I'm using Ubuntu 11.04 in Classic theme, with autohiding panels (this is a netbook). I have to "killall gnome-panel" frequently so the top menu will unhide. It's getting bloody annoying. Anyone else getting this?

(I have tested Debian on this Mini 9 and gotten the wifi to work, and proprietary multimedia formats are less faff in Debian than Ubuntu. Ubuntu has useful things like the PPAs, though, which I run a lot of stuff out of. We'll see how much 11.10 embraces the suck.)

My current intellectual faff goes by the tag "Bayesian postmodernism." Though the name is thorougly explanatory, I'm giving away nothing because anyone who understands one won't understand (if they've heard of) the other, attempting to explain the first to the second may be pedagogically impossible and attempting to explain the second in terms of the first is leaving me feeling like I don't understand anything. Also, I'm taking it on faith that Derrida is in fact rigorous, and not just being deliberately annoying in a stereotypically French manner. I have about a page of notes and a head full of vague images. It's a quintessential Official Slacker Handbook-level project: something to obsess over and produce very little tangible concerning. It's like being in my twenties again.

Ahh, suburban highlife. Dashing out to rescue the washing from the neighbour's barbecue. Love people. I thought smoky fuels were illegal in Greater London. Dammit.

Comments

[doug]

I'm an anarchist and am tempted to helpfully send them 'any information about anarchists' as requested. Potted biographies of Bakunin, Proudhon, Stirner, and of course Kropotkin for starters. And then perhaps a historic overview of the debate about means and methods that anarchists have engaged in with each other from the C18th to now. Oh, and there have been some pretty vigorous debates about Bakunin, Lenin, the International and all that. Ooh, and information about troop movements around the Kronstadt rebellion, and stats about industrial output in Catalonia around 1936. Hmm - come to think of it, what I have for lunch every day clearly falls under their definition.

One seeks to be helpful where one can be without compromising one's principles.

[strangedave]

I generally like anarchists, but don't have the patience to actually be one. Which is to say, my experiences are similar to yours.

I am intrigued by the Bayesian postmodernism idea, the combination of the two feels intuitively valuable to explore. I shall look forward to your further discoveries.

[urocyon]

Of the wide variety of strains of ideologically sound thinkers I've interacted with, no-one does faff like anarchists. No-one.

Too true. :-| (Somewhat disaffected? Nah...) I also start wanting to step in and run things like somebody's grandma, just to get something done and some of the bickering stopped. ("You, there, go sit in the corner until you can act like an adult and treat other people with respect! And maybe get some grip on pragmatism!"--without its being voluntary, that is. *snort*) Which does go pretty far toward explaining why I just avoid groups these days. Especially in meatspace. Now I mainly just get into snarkfests with other indigenist types who mostly don't call themselves anarchists (anymore)--which also gets very little done, but in a much more amusing and less apoplexy-inducing way. ;)

They don't specify that said "anarchists" need to be living now--much less in the UK--which opens up a lot more "information relating to" of sorts already mentioned. Especially with the stateless past of, erm, large areas of the world. Just a thought, though I am too lazy to implement something like that to make a point.

I also wish some of our neighbors knew that (or cared), if burning smoky things is legally frowned upon. One houseload of pyros (usually upwind) must go around collecting other people's garden debris to take home and burn. :/ Granted, the climate and post-1666 architecture are not nearly as suited to accidentally burning everything down here, but all the smoke is not great in a densely populated area, no.

[jld]

Embarrasingly enough, it wasn't until I was in college (and found an anarchist tract by poking around on the then-newish Freenet, of all things) that I realized there was more to anarchism than middle-schoolers graffiti-ing the A symbol on bathroom stalls.

Google Plus

[maxcelcat]

Yes, I find myself wondering what exactly Google+ is for. I joined it only because several people asked me too - and they seem to mostly be people who I know from Twitter, so that makes it redundant right there.

I hate Gmail with a passion, and never use it. Pay for my own domain and my own addresses.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm using Ubuntu 11.04 in Classic theme, with autohiding panels (this is a netbook). I have to "killall gnome-panel" frequently so the top menu will unhide. It's getting bloody annoying. Anyone else getting this?

I have no idea if the Netbook makes a difference, but I am also using Ubuntu 11.04 in Classic theme, but I don't seem to have autohiding panels (unless you mean what Ubuntu calls srollbars -- in which case I do but I have learned to live).

I expect I turned that function off when I after I did the install.

I thought smoky fuels were illegal in Greater London

As I Weber owner I am not down with that rule. Not down at all.