flog

I see no downside to bringing the over-priced inefficiency bred by unionized labor to the fast food industry.

Dear child, you're not ready to join us yet. (Take the quiz.)

Is the recent nineleven frenzy due to this being the 5th Anniversary or is Sept 11 making a run for Christmas's spot as most egregiously anticipated holiday. I shudder to think of a June 2007 blockbuster disaster movie with Nick Cage reprising his role as a guy trying to look like a guy whose a cop.

Astroturfing strikes me as immoral corporate behaviour. I don't think corporations have any business being part of the marketplace of ideas. I also think it is nonsense to think of corporations as having rights such as "free speech" or "free assembly".

From here:

Received via email on Sep 7 [2006]



Thank you for your further e-mail.

VW 50501 was newly introduced in July 2005.

VW 50501 is not based on VW50500, but represents a higher quality level.

Since July 2005, VW 50501 is only proved in connection with VW50200.

VW 50501 includes VW 50500, because the requirements towards VW 50500 are also

completely fulfilled by the VW 50501 oils.

According to VW 50501 0W-x, 5W-x, 10W-x, xW-30 and xW-40 are permissible.

Up to now, we have only approved oils with the viscosities SAE 5W-30 and 5W-40.

Best regards

  

So, VW 505.01 (the normal drain interval standard for PD TDI engines that don't use diesel particulate filters) was introduced in 2005-07. It is not based on VW505.00 (the normal drain interval standard for all diesels that aren't Pump-Düse or the Touareg V10 TDI) but is a higher quality superset of it. Before on oil can meet VW505.01 it must meet VW502.00. Originally, only 5w40 synthetic oils were approved, but now 5w30 oils have been approved, too. VW505.01 allows 0W/5W/10W-30/40 oils viscosity oils.

In other news, HTHS viscosity is a measure of viscosity breakdown under high-temp/high shear conditions. The higher the number the better the oil protects against wear, but beyond a certain point you'll take a fuel economy hit. VW505.01 requires a minimum HTHS viscosity of 3.5 cP (centipoise). SAPS measurements relate to the levels of sulphated ash and phosphorus in the oil. High ash is bad for diesels that use DPFs, but the higher the SAPS number the better the oil protects against wear. NOTE: The extended drain interval standards (VW506.xx) actually call for a maximum HTHS because they focus more on maximizing fuel economy.

Everyone is coming at me with anger and venom, but I depicted her as she has depicted herself - seductively. Suddenly, she's a mom.

A random vanity search sent me off on a diversionary romp through cyberspace yesterday that landed me on Wikipedia.

Lyotard defined postmodern as "skepticism of metanarratives" and not surprisingly others (such as Habermas) countered that this, too, was a metanarrative, suggesting that a) human thought cannot escape totalizing, grand tales of the world and b) postmodern thinkers are hypocrites. I'm a rank tourist when it comes to philosophy, but it seems to me that Lyotard's statement is more a description of a fact in "the post-modern age" first and an organizing philosophic principle second, which would mean that the critique is a non-starter. I remember fondly my days of misspent youth as a fundamentalist-piece-of-shit-godfucker repeating the old saw "It's absolutely true that there are no absolute truths". Heh, in one sentence the innumerable philosophers based on moral relativism and postmodernism have been toppled. Toppled! Of course, no one had ever said there are no absolute truths, they had observed that truth in situational. That what's true really depends on the context. This is hardly controversial, but it does tend to freak out the grand idealists.

Today, I was on Wikipedia again looking at something else, and found this quote:

The construction of the statement takes its meaning beyond the simple

judgemental observation, "Information should be free" by acknowledging

that the internal force or entelechy of information and knowledge makes

it essentially incompatible with Capitalist notions of proprietary software,

copyrights, patents, subscription services, private property, etc.

Information is dynamic, ever-growing and evolving and cannot be contained

within (any) ideological structure.

  

I was struck at how similar the cyperpunk idea of the way information relates (or doesn't relate) to capitalism is to Lyotard's definition of postmodern. Are the cyberpunks just evidence of Lyotard's acumen and a part of the postmodern or are they directly influenced by postmodern thinkers? I don't know.

Shitting on you, forlorn. No fair!
You can't hear me, but I can you!

I've always really liked Purple, especially the Side 2 tracks. So, I downloaded Core last night in my ongoing attempts to kill my Oink ratio. There are no less than 3 songs on this album that I always thought were Pearl Jam. What a maroon.