Literature for young adults is divided between those who try to impart useful knowledge about life ahead and those who, having found life's byways ran more into stagnation than thoroughfares, want to project their neurotic sense of fear onto children. This book, despite being of the former sense, plays with the latter by addressing adult paranoia in a metaphorical form, much like cult movie They Live: what if our society was taken over by aliens who attacked our minds and not our technology?

In the contemporary or future setting of the book, the narrator and protagonist Will is a thirteen-year-old boy in a pre-technological land ruled by giant mechanical tripods. These outer space critters allow humans to conduct their affairs so long as every adult is "capped," or implanted with a mechanical brain control device, at age 14. As part two of a trilogy, The City of Gold and Lead describes the infiltration of an alien city on earth by Will and two cohorts. In the previous book, Will and his cousin Henry had observed how capping reduced creativity and made people automatons, and so had rebelled, destroying a tripod and heading to the French alps where they were free from oversight.

Read the rest here: The City of Gold and Lead by John Christopher review

July 30, 2008 - LARM! archive made available

Originally at larm.cjb.net, LARM! was one of the original black metal archives where users could submit their work. Owing to its popularity among those active in the underground, before the funderground came along, it maintained high quality of critique for the black metal that pushed the genre onward to world domination. The dark legions archive is proud to present the LARM! Archive for those who want to glimpse black metal history in the making or rediscover some classic bands.

Trees don't pay taxes: An AVERSE SEFIRA interview

Averse Sefira on church burning, what it is to be a Hessian, why humans ignore the destruction of nature and why black metal is still relevant. Video interview with "A Year at the Wheel".

AVERSE SEFIRA interview

Read more about their music and hear mp3 samples:

Averse Sefira review

According to lore, this recording was made before Onward to Golgotha and erased from the master tapes. Judging by the sound of this CD, someone preserved a cassette copy and has now digitized it for release.

Read More >> Incantation - Blasphemous Cremation review and MP3 samples

I see a lot of critique of how Slashdot does this, or Slashdot does that, but I think it's all a smokescreen for the obvious: the weak node in the Slashdot network is the users.

In particular, users (and those who mod them up) who make comments that are either (a) supposed to be funny or (b) supposed to appeal emotionally.

In today's meta-moderation, I saw several jokes that when taken in context, were not funny but got modded up for trying, I guess. That's junk content. If it's not laugh out loud funny, who cares? People read this site for information, not bad cheap humor.

Also, I saw one post where in response to someone asking for a use for old equipment, had suggested giving it to the poor. It got modded as Insightful. How about Retarded? Stating the obvious and impractical may make a room full of church ladies swoon, but it's neither helpful nor good to read.

For all the complaining that goes on, you'd think the users would look at their own behavior before blaming others. But that requires us to look more closely at some of the sacred cows listed above.

Ambient metal band Summoning took a few moments to chat with us:

"I think metal music is maybe just a bit burned out because music with hard guitars already entered already the mainstream the years before. Apart from very conservative people a super hard guitar chord is no considered as noise as in the past. I remember clearly 15 years ago when I was walking with long hair and a dark metal shirt through the streets I often was considered as a mentally ill decadent maniac by old conservatives; now metal with harsh guitars has become far more socially acceptable."

Summoning/Ice Ages interview

Millions of security cameras throughout Britain aimed to combat terrorism and crime also catch litterbugs, parking violators and, oops, doggy doo left on the grass.

Britons complain that local officials use the cameras to prosecute petty offenses.

The latest outrage came last month when a dog owner in Bristol, England, was fined for "dog fouling" after being shown pictures of his mixed collie, Mitzy, squatting in a grassy commons area. The owner, Paul Griffiths, was fined $320 and ordered to pay $1,760 after failing to appear in court.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usatoday/20080707/tc_usatoday/britishsecuritycamerasalsocatchcommonplaceoffenses

This is why many who argue like that "slippery slope" argument: it almost always comes true. Give a man a hammer, and he'll make sure even pins get nailed in.

Good intentions in our modern state lead to bad results. None of us like stepping in dog poop, but how much surveillance are we willing to tolerate in order to achieve that goal?

It might be better to instead live around the 10% of humanity who are considerate, intelligent human beings. That way, if you step in dog poop, you know something went wrong and it wasn't just sloth as usual.

The real problem with a surveillance society is that it will catch only the clueless, because those with real bad intent will find ways to hide what they're doing. Think about how our current society is good at busting small-time drug dealers, but the big guys seem to thrive forever.

Suppose now that there were two such magic rings, and the just put on one of them and the unjust the other;,no man can be imagined to be of such an iron nature that he would stand fast in justice. No man would keep his hands off what was not his own when he could safely take what he liked out of the market, or go into houses and lie with any one at his pleasure, or kill or release from prison whom he would, and in all respects be like a God among men. Then the actions of the just would be as the actions of the unjust; they would both come at last to the same point. And this we may truly affirm to be a great proof that a man is just, not willingly or because he thinks that justice is any good to him individually, but of necessity, for wherever any one thinks that he can safely be unjust, there he is unjust. For all men believe in their hearts that injustice is far more profitable to the individual than justice, and he who argues as I have been supposing, will say that they are right. If you could imagine any one obtaining this power of becoming invisible, and never doing any wrong or touching what was another's, he would be thought by the lookers-on to be a most wretched idiot, although they would praise him to one another's faces, and keep up appearances with one another from a fear that they too might suffer injustice.

http://classics.mit.edu/Plato/republic.3.ii.html

Injustice triumphs when we assume we see everything, or when we allow too much to be hidden. Our current CCTV scheme has a lot to be desired.

Back in 1996, the net was new and when the Canadian Elections Board
threatened to exclude Green parties from the ticket, they asked for help
from the net -- and it came, in part from ANUS.com. We posted their
protest and linked to many other sites helping get Green parties on the
ticket in Canada. It's one of the many ways that ANUS is making a better
human future.

http://www.anus.com/etc/green/

METALHIT.com Announces Launch of Extreme Metal Mp3 Store / New Releases / Free Compilation

Metalhit.com, the first all-digital extreme metal label, have launched their extensive Mp3 download store featuring over 3,000 songs of high-fidelity, unlimited preview, DRM-free Mp3s. The store features titles from underground labels like Avantgarde, Red Stream Rec., Sevared Rec., Lacerated Enemy Rec., Crematorium Rec., Deathgasm Rec., Hammer of Hate, Negative Existence, Stygian Crypt and more!

Visitors to Metalhit.com can download a FREE 18 band compilation featuring artists like Mirrorthrone, Zemial, Forefather, Gortuary, Behexen, Diabolic and more!

www.metalhit.com

Metalhit titles are also available worldwide through all fine digital retailers (iTunes, eMusic, Amazon Mp3, Rhapsody, Napster and more!)

Interview with Metalhit.com proprietor Mike Riddick

CORRUPT meeting: Houston, TX - June 27, 2008

Join us for chat, food and goofing off, with some discussion of the following:

* Emergent pattern languages
* The doctrine of parallelism
* Re-inventing a saner world
* Intelligence and how to nurture it

When: Friday, June 27, 7:00 PM - 12:00 AM
Where: Taco Cabana, 3905 Kirby Houston, TX 77098 (Kirby @ Richmond)

About HOUSTON

Houston, TX is a humid, freeway-bound, concrete-plated, cockroach-ridden city expanding along the "Los Angeles model" of automobile-dependent city design. Nevertheless, it is one of the most popular destinations for people seeking the American dream, and home of not only the oil industry, but many thousands of food service workers who have indie rock bands named after serial killers.

About CORRUPT

CORRUPT is a thinktank and civilization watchdog that believes a better future for humans will come by embracing organic reality and not institutional or emotional abstractions. Our goal is to get human civilization back on track by separating fantasy from reality, applying the principles of information science, and promoting organization over confusion.

CORRUPT
PO Box 1004
Alief, TX 77411
(512) 553-4544

http://www.CORRUPT.org/

Q: what would your ideal lifestyles be, if you were exempted from the problems of resource scarcity?

P: I would begin by eliminating 90% of the population, which would be a huge step in the right direction of an ideal lifestyle.

Acerbus interview

Keep the best, toss the rest.

June 6 is a perfect day for Hessians across the country to come together and engage in something upon which we can all agree - listening to Slayer! Also, do you really want those evangelical Neo-Cons to have all the fun with their "National Day of Prayer"? Enjoy a "National Day of Slayer" instead:

National Day of Slayer

* Listen to Slayer at full blast in your car.
* Listen to Slayer at full blast in your home.
* Listen to Slayer at full blast at your place of employment.
* Listen to Slayer at full blast in any public place you prefer.

Download Slayer's 1986 Demo with songs from "Reign in Blood"

Then you can take that participation to a problematic level:

* Stage a "Slay-out." Don't go to work. Listen to Slayer.
* Spray paint Slayer logos on churches, synagogues, or cemeteries.
* Play Slayer covers with your own band (since 99% of your riffs are stolen from Slayer anyway).
* Kill the neighbor's dog and blame it on Slayer.

National Day of Slayer

Sponsored by:
The Hessian Studies Center and
The Dark Legions Archive

CORRUPT Houston Meeting
May 30, 2008

From a swamp of highways, billboards, neon and idling cars, CORRUPT Houston members converged for a night of conversation and hilarity. Originally, we had a list of "serious topics" we would attempt to discuss in case anyone claimed we weren't hardcore enough, and we brought brooms to show people our street activism, but ultimately we recognized the pomposity of such people and instead sought the real in our lives. This took the form of humorous stories from the bowels of the modern experience.

Not that we were without a "serious" side. After a brief presentations on "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy" by John Mearsheimer and Steven Walt, and "The Multicultural Mystique: The Liberal Case Against Diversity" by Harriet Baber, a lively debate was had over the merits of different Linux installations and the Crowdist downfall of BSD versions. Finally, we lapsed into a series of anecdotal analyses of the modern meltdown and then resumed the lighthearted socialization that is a hallmark of people who can at least understand each other's views.

Around us, Houston -- the archetype of a modern, car-based city -- ticked on down its way to entropy: thin girls with dyed hair and colored contacts pursued consumer goods and penises with credit lines to support them, day laborers got drunk and rowdy and were hauled off by tight-lipped cops, dopamine-drenched brains talked about universal submission and conspicuous altruism, a million bored above-average intelligences drowned their sorrows in alcohol and entertainment.

Through the efforts of our Houston-area members, sanity was achieved for a few hours, and a resolve to meet again and bring up more of the pragmatic acts we can use to (a) change the system that collectively sways us toward doom and (b) prepare the smart few to survive it, and to have the will to exterminate the rest. Our next meeting is June 27 at the same location.

About HOUSTON

Houston, TX is a humid, freeway-bound, concrete-plated, cockroach-ridden city expanding along the "Los Angeles model" of automobile-dependent city design. Nevertheless, it is one of the most popular destinations for people seeking the American dream, and home of not only the oil industry, but many thousands of food service workers who have indie rock bands named after serial killers.

About CORRUPT

CORRUPT is a thinktank and civilization watchdog that believes a better future for humans will come by embracing organic reality and not institutional or emotional abstractions. Our goal is to get human civilization back on track by separating fantasy from reality, applying the principles of information science, and promoting organization over confusion.

CORRUPT
PO Box 1004
Alief, TX 77411
(512) 553-4544

http://www.CORRUPT.org/

deathmetal.muxtape.com

It's a site that hosts free MP3s and plays them through the browser -- any browser since about 1997. This is a death metal compilation for those wondering why we listen to the stuff.

CORRUPT meeting: Houston, TX - May 30, 2008

Join us for chat, food and goofing off, with some discussion of the following:

* Emergent pattern languages
* The doctrine of parallelism
* Re-inventing a saner world
* Intelligence and how to nurture it

When: Friday, May 30, 7:00 PM - 12:00 AM
Where: Taco Cabana, 3905 Kirby Houston, TX 77098 (Kirby @ Richmond)

About HOUSTON

Houston, TX is a humid, freeway-bound, concrete-plated, cockroach-ridden city expanding along the "Los Angeles model" of automobile-dependent city design. Nevertheless, it is one of the most popular destinations for people seeking the American dream, and home of not only the oil industry, but many thousands of food service workers who have indie rock bands named after serial killers.

About CORRUPT

CORRUPT is a thinktank and civilization watchdog that believes a better future for humans will come by embracing organic reality and not institutional or emotional abstractions. Our goal is to get human civilization back on track by separating fantasy from reality, applying the principles of information science, and promoting organization over confusion.

CORRUPT
PO Box 1004
Alief, TX 77411
(512) 553-4544

http://www.CORRUPT.org/