Rudy Carrera

According to the Daily Telegraph, Razeqi told Iran’s state-run Fars news agency that his device “easily fits into the size of a personal computer case and can predict details of the next 5-8 years of the life of its users. It will not take you into the future, it will bring the future to you.”

Razeqi says Iran has decided to keep his prophetic time machine under wraps for now out of fear that “the Chinese will steal the idea and produce it in millions overnight.”

Shame on National Geographic for sensationalizing an otherwise boring story.

A Cellphone’s Missing Dot Kills Two People, Puts Three More in Jail

March 21, 2013 Cowardice, Crime, Fonts & Typography, Law, Murder, Technology No comments

The terrors of typography. Flipping through Tumblr, I came across this rather tragic story and reminder to make sure your punctuation is perfect, lest you offend someone and cost people both their freedom and their lives. The money quote from Gizmodo:

The surreal mistake happened because Ramazan’s sent a message and Emine’s cellphone didn’t have an specific character from the Turkish alphabet: the letter “ı” or closed i. While “i” is available in all phones in Turkey—where this happened—the closed i apparently doesn’t exist in most of the terminals in that country.

The use of “i” resulted in an SMS with a completely twisted meaning: instead of writing the word “sıkısınca” it looked like he wrote “sikisince.” Ramazan wanted to write “You change the topic every time you run out of arguments” (sounds familiar enough) but what Emine read was, “You change the topic every time they are fucking you” (sounds familiar too.)

Checking In

March 17, 2013 Personal No comments

2013 has turned into quite an eventful year already. Political upheaval in the Middle East, the Maghreb and West Africa; the abdication of the Papal Seat and replacement with a Jesuit (of all people!), the rumors of war with Iran, North Korea and their client states, and a whole lot of good new music to monitor. It’s felt like 3 interesting years in three solid months. I can’t wait to see what else happens.

After the completion of a project, I hope to return back to my second home in Skopje, Macedonia, and then to scope out new possibilities for projects throughout the year. Top on the list is Estonia, with visits to Romania, Bulgaria and maybe Turkey and the Caucasus, if peaceful conditions hold.

It will be good to see my old friends. Many of you rank near family to me, and I appreciate your kindness and hospitality. I look forward to repaying it and enjoying the rest of this year in the company of good friends, as well as my family here in SoCal.

Rand Paul Yields The Floor; Filibuster Ends at 12:40 a.m.

March 6, 2013 Politics No comments

I have refrained from discussing politics for a long time, mainly because I see both parties as worthless, albeit for different reasons. Rand Paul, Senator from Kentucky, has just given me (and I’m sure millions of others) a wake-up call. He just spent the whole of the day filibustering drone strikes from the Obama Administration. For more, read this pull quote from Breitbart.com:

During his “talking” filibuster, which originally began as a one-man stand against the Obama administration’s refusal to state clearly that it would be unconstitutional to use drones to kill U.S. citizens on U.S. soil if they did not pose an imminent terrorist threat, Paul drew national attention and support across party lines.

Paul cited, as one of his reasons for stopping, the need to use the bathroom. Traditionally, the rules of the Senate do not permit a “talking” filibuster to be sustained if the Senator conducting the filibuster leaves the chamber. He expressed regret that he had not broken the late Sen. Strom Thurmond’s record of over 24 hours, but declared that the effort–in which won support from Senators of both parties–had been worth the effort.

Good job, Rand. You have earned yourself heaps of respect for this stand.

A Fresh Start…

January 27, 2013 Personal No comments

Thanks to trying to fiddle with my WordPress blog on my own, I managed to damage the database, so I get to start fresh. Hopefully this install runs a lot smoother!

First Photo of 2013

January 3, 2013 My Photos, Personal No comments

Well, the new year has started of reasonably well. Certainly better than the last couple. I’ll take that as a good omen, and hope I don’t grey too badly by year’s end!

Welcome, 2013!

January 1, 2013 Personal No comments

With beautiful weather (okay, a bit crisp for California, but a bit more tolerable than trudging in snow and rain as I did in Europe last year), a good (and surprisingly short) liturgy, and the prospect of good news on two projects, 2013 seems to be off to a raring start!

I will begin posting more regularly here again, opining on anything and everything that interests me. I will be mirroring the posts at my Tumblr Site, the Facebook Fan Page, my Google+ and LinkedIn accounts. I will continue blogging on religious topics at Oiketerion, and I plan on developing A Miscellany of Tasteful…, my blog dedicated to music, arts, culture and the Humanities, a lot more, organizing thousands of links into something which I plan as a legacy of interesting things for friends and students to peruse at their leisure.

I have no idea what else this year holds in store for me personally, except to say that I will be attending the Without Borders Music Conference and Festival in Varna, Bulgaria, again this year (I attended in 2003 and 2011). With good fortune, work will place me back into Central or Eastern Europe, and I can continue working on helping artists whenever and however possible.

Ideas for collaborative efforts are always welcome, and I look forward to working with many interesting artists this year in both music and film.

May we all have a wonderful 2013!

Merry Christmas (and Thank God It’s Over)

December 24, 2012 Personal No comments

I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to say that 2012 was not the greatest year either I or any of my colleagues experienced. Between experiencing personal misfortune and observing political upheaval both here and in Europe, suffering through a weak economy and enduring poor employment options, this year is best forgotten about (and quickly, I hope!).

Still, although next year may well deal out more of the same, it is good to be prepared for it, and I hope for what may turn out to be a pleasant surprise.

May all of you enjoy Christmas, Hanukkah, Eid, or just a pleasant day off. We earned it. May 2013 turn out to be better for all of us.

On Sandy Hook…

December 15, 2012 Christmas, Cowardice, Crime, Holidays, Law, Massacres, Murder, Politics No comments

Words fail.

If you have children, cling to them during this time. We are guaranteed nothing in life.

Election Night

November 7, 2012 Corruption, Politics No comments

It looks like, much to my disgust, Barack Obama will continue on as President of the United States. Never have I felt so dejected to be an American citizen.

For four years, I had hoped my fellow citizens would have had enough of creeping Socialism entering into the country. I had hoped that some of my fellow compatriots would fight for things just a tad more important than the right to sodomy (which everyone can do behind closed doors anyway) or killing babies (which women do with impunity). As it turns out, I was wrong. The American populace are perfectly happy being a servile, sickening group of gluttons who have no idea what hell they will unleash upon themselves. They deserve it. The tragedy is that those who don’t want this will also suffer, and terribly so. God help us all.

With that, it may be good to remind you all to take heart. Barack Obama will be out of office in four years, no matter what. The country will be in tatters, but he will be gone. We can survive him.

I wonder, however, if we can survive a blinded, blinkered, full half of the citizenry so poisoned, ignorant and foul in their political thinking that they would kill any hope of real progress for bread and circuses.

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Iranian Scientist Claims to Have Built ‘Time Machine’