Skip to main content



My 51st Birthday


17/11/16 - Looks like we went to what was the best banh mi shop in the western suburbs, I had a bit of a read and then down the Largs Pier Hotel with the kids.


Pigface in bloom


16/11/16 - Pigface is one of my favourite plants. Again, beautiful flowers.


Nice morning for it.


16/11/16 - Running on the beach. I don't do that so often nowadays.


There may be hope with what we could see


Those of us with civilization have it so hard to imagine ourselves not having civilization for anything. But there were many more generations of humans who never had civilization, and thrived still without so much work, than all the generations with civilization. We can learn the ways to have what we can be comfortable with, making things that we can and growing things, without that dependence on civilization, that we would not be lost when civilization is lost.



Cactus flowers.


15/11/16 - Living where we live means we get to have cacti and succulents in abundance in our garden. I even have a stubborn thorn in my finger as I type. Their flowers are always spectacular.



Untitled


15/11/16 - I must've received an order of 7" singles in the post. This, Ruby Andrews' original version of Casanova, is a great little record. Ruby Andrews is one of those singers who only seem to get some love from the Northern scene, largely because of Just Loving You.


Say Leroy!


I picked up a load of Jimmy Castor Bunch LPs in the mid-80s in a second hand record shop and have always found his acid-funk work enthralling, even though a good 50% of his LPs are just unlistenable MOR cover versions.

This single used to get spun at acid jazz dos. It's a cracker.





Choon! Long time want.


15/11/16 - Underrated tune. Disco Strut by Cream De Coco. Neither very disco-ey, nor very strut-ty. But good all the same.


The sawtooth building from across the river this morning.


15/11/16 - Another old port building that's bitten the dust. There was a bit of a local campaign to save this one.




Nice run up the beach listening to the plink, plink, fizz of #stephanbodzin.


I'd forgotten how much I liked Stephan Bodzin's Liebe Ist album. I very rarely pay CDs or digital files any more, so this has just slipped off my radar.

This photo was taken under the Largs Pier Jetty. The decay of the timber is very attractive.




Unnamed post


10/11/16 - Bought a couple of Xiantoni Ari singles at this time. They're very good. Future Northern classics I reckon.


For Deleuze, as for Foucault and Lyotard, the activity of political reflection must have as a primary goal the freeing of an individual (be that individual a person, a group, or a practice) for new practices, practices that change, undermine, or abandon the power relationships that keep old practices in place. Foucault addresses the same concern in his description of philosophical “curiosity”:

"...not the curiosity that seeks to assimilate what it is proper for one to know, but that which enables one to get free of oneself… There is always something ludicrous in philosophical discourse when it tries, from the outside, to dictate to others, to tell them where their truth is and how to find it, or when it works up a case against them in the language of naive positivity. But it is entitled to explore what might be changed, in its own thought, through the practice of a knowledge that is foreign to it." (Foucault, The History of Sexuality, Vol. 2: The Use of Pleasure)

#deleuze
#foucault
#lyotard
#poststructuralism

in reply to pataphysician

The task of a poststructuralist politics is to attempt to construct power relationships that can be lived with, not to overthrow power altogether.
As such, experimentation is a sober and often tentative activity. One experiments by constructing practices that one is prepared to abandon if their effects are intolerable. The recognition of contingency that inhabits networks of practices brings in its wake another recognition: practices that seem liberating may, because of unexpected interactions with or developments of other practices, have consequences very different from those imagined by their initiators. There is no blueprint for practice. The ethical principles that help one to judge practice remain; but one can only experiment in their realization.
One such experimentation, discussed by Deleuze, is that of “becoming minor.” It is a concept best understood as engaging in a practice that, while within the social network of practices and thus not transgressing that network, occupies a place that disrupts dominant practices by showing creative possibilities within those practices which would escape the political oppressions associated with them. To engage in a becoming-minor is to construct a line of flight within the social network by constructing—or following—one of the stems of the social rhizome that in the same gesture entangles dominant stems and is a positive possibility for practice. Regarding language, Deleuze and Guattari claim that “it is certainly not by using a minor language as a dialect, by regionalizing it or ghettoizing, that one becomes revolutionary; rather, by using a number of minority elements, by connecting, conjugating them, one invents a specific, unforeseen, autonomous becoming.”
in reply to pataphysician

"...That utilization, however, must remain a “minor” one: the task of becoming-minor is precisely that; it is not a task of making the minor dominant."


I'm going to use fake labels here, because I want to make a general point. People should be allowed to express their personal opinions, as long as they are not actually threatening others, or encouraging violence. If you say "I don't think Martians should be able to use the same bathrooms as Venusians", "Martians should stay home and watch their children", or "Martians should be sent back to their planet and not allowed to come to Earth without interplanetary passports", those are opinions. But if you write a post defending the rights of Earthlings to attack Martians or defend someone who did, or tell a Martian that he should kill himself, that's entirely different. Those are not just opinions. They can lead to actual crimes.

In reality, while I wouldn't call myself a feminist, I do believe in equal rights for men and women. I firmly support and defend the rights of homosexuals and bisexuals and will not befriend those who actively speak against them. I also believe that those who moderate groups should be able to set the rules and not allow such content. But in general, I don't think that personal opinions should be stifled. I just wouldn't associate with such people, just as I wouldn't with those who hate the blind. It's just common sense. I also think that, many times, people today are offended by the most ridiculous things. There are actually warnings about songs or radio shows made in the past, for example. I've listened to some of them and can't find anything wrong with them. I also realise that it's foolish to judge something from a hundred years ago by the standards of today, which many people seem to have forgotten. And not everything needs to be criticised, analysed, or is because of the upper class, or the patriarchy, or whites, or meat eaters, or whatever group is being blamed this week. I'm sick of everything being politicised on all sides of the spectrum.

theverge.com/2025/1/7/24338471…



SInce I have no friends here yet, I'm posting this random photo I took in Iceland to brighten my feed.




One dollar


06/11/16 - Picked up at Gepps Cross Market, which used to take place on the drive-in cinema site. All closed down now, to feed the insatiable housing beast. Another loss for people who like to browse random shite spread out on a tarpaulin.

Also, another record that's barely worth a dollar.






There I was, running up the foreshore, and....FUUUCCCKKK! #brownsnake


05/11/16 - Snakes terrify me. As I was leaving the scene there was a man nudging it with his bicycle wheel, whilst his girlfriend implored him not to. A little vignette showing why women live longer than men.






Une proposition vraiment intéressante.


L'UE révolutionne l'accès aux données de santé : Un pas de géant vers une Europe médicale sans frontières


L'Union européenne franchit une étape décisive dans la transformation numérique des soins de santé avec l'adoption du règlement sur l'Espace européen des données de santé (EHDS) le 21 Janvier 2025.

Ce texte novateur, ayant été une large majorité par le Parlement européen le 24 avril 2024, promet de redéfinir l'accès et le partage des informations médicales à travers le continent.

Au cœur de cette initiative se trouve la volonté de faciliter l'accès des citoyens européens à leurs données de santé électroniques, qu'ils se trouvent dans leur pays d'origine ou dans un autre État membre. Cette avancée majeure permettra non seulement une continuité des soins lors des déplacements au sein de l'UE, mais offrira également aux patients un contrôle accru sur l'utilisation de leurs informations médicales.

L'EHDS ne se limite pas à améliorer les soins individuels ; il ouvre également de nouvelles perspectives pour la recherche médicale et l'innovation en santé. En permettant aux chercheurs et aux décideurs politiques d'accéder à des données de santé sécurisées et anonymisées, le règlement promet d'accélérer le développement de nouveaux traitements, en particulier pour les maladies rares qui touchent 30 millions d'Européens.

La mise en œuvre de l'EHDS s'accompagne de garanties solides en matière de protection des données personnelles. Le règlement prévoit la création d'autorités de santé numérique dans chaque pays membre, chargées de veiller à l'application des nouvelles dispositions. De plus, les patients auront la possibilité de s'opposer à l'accès à leurs données, sauf pour des fins d'intérêt général strictement encadrées.

Avec une entrée en application progressive sur les 2 à 6 prochaines années, l'EHDS représente un défi d'adaptation pour les systèmes de santé nationaux, mais aussi une opportunité sans précédent. En harmonisant les réglementations à l'échelle européenne, ce règlement pose les fondations d'un écosystème de santé numérique plus intégré, plus efficace et plus innovant, promettant des avancées significatives dans la qualité des soins pour tous les citoyens européens.

Lien vers le nouveau règlement (en français) : data.consilium.europa.eu/doc/d…

#SantéNumérique #EHDS #InnovationMédicale #DonnéesDeSanté #UESanté #EHDS