All posts by d dot b

From Ashy to Classy

July 19, 2008 d dot b Leave a comment

Ashy to Classy
Jay-Z makes it into Vogue magazine

The August issue of Vogue magazine will feature black models and entertainers as the popular Italian magazine has came under fire in recent years for not representing black models in their magazines. Jay-Z is one of the feature articles in the magazine and it is really big that Jay-Z from the Marcy projects in Brooklyn New York can rise from the gutter to the pages of the exquisite Italian vogue magazine. Looking at the pictures, Jay-Z can be the poster child for what ‘mature hip-hop’ looks like ….

The Vogue magazine should drop sometime in July 2008 and will not only featuring Jay-Z, but Naomi Campbell, Tyson Beckford, Toccara, and other black models. Vogue gets a ‘kudos’ for at least attempting to open its doors to black models in their magazines, but lets see if they can keep it up.

.:: d.b ::.

Family, Logic, Love, Relationships, Social, Work

WikiP: ‘Trust’

July 11, 2008 d dot b Leave a comment

Trust
Virtues: relationships, predictive actions, past knowledge

I‘ve always known wikipedia to be a good resource for historical facts and events, but it never really dawned on me that wikipedia can be used as a dictionary – to look up terms and definitions of everyday words. Well, apparently to my knowledge, wikipedia is also some sort of a dictionary, but where dictionary.com only gives you the definition of a word, wikipedia gives you the definition and concepts behind the word, and relational concepts.

For example, let’s look at the word ‘Trust‘:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust_%28social_sciences%29

Trust is a relationship of reliance. A trusted party is presumed to seek to fulfill policies, ethical codes, law and their previous promises.

Trust does not need to involve belief in the good character, vices, or morals of the other party. Persons engaged in a criminal activity usually trust each other to some extent. Also trust does not need to include an action that you and the other party are mutually engaged in. Trust is a prediction of reliance on an action, based on what a party knows about the other party. Trust is a statement about what is otherwise unknown — for example, because it is far away, cannot be verified, or is in the future.

And it goes on, and on. Reading this, I particularly find the line ‘Trust is a prediction of reliance on an action, based on what a party knows about the other party.‘ to be very telling as it really does not matter how long you have known someone to ascertain if you trust them, what is important is how much knowledge and/or insight you have on an individual – one can get that intel in years or in a matter of minutes. Family, lifelong friends should be ‘trustworthy’, but we may only perceive them as such because of the notion that such people should be the ones that we ‘trust’. Well trust me, trust can be found in the oddest of places with even the oddest of people, as trust should really be based and predicted upon the reliance of an action – based on what you know about an individual.

I believe I always have had this notion for years, but have never been able to articulated quite like the wiki has (but, I never really had the desire to do so either). Its very hard to say that I can fully trust someone – because we base trust on how we would hope/anticipate people to act in certain situations. Its a cliche to say well, “I hope they will do the right thing”, but that ‘right thing’ varies from individual to individual. It would be best to base your trust based on the immediate action + what prior information you know about the individual.

For example:

You would not trust him with your kids:

Michael Jackson

You would not trust him with your 15 year old daughter:

R. Kelly

You would not trust her with keeping a secret:

Karrine Superhead Steffans

You would not trust him (Ike Turner) with your personal safety:

Ike Turner & Tina Turner

You would not trust his word:

O.J. Simpson

In all, you would not trust these people in the examples that I prescribed, but that does not directly correlate that you would not trust them in other scenarios: R. Kelly could be able to give you good advice & direction regarding the music industry, O.J. may be a trustful source of information for football skills & techniques, and Karrine ‘Superhead’ Steffans may be a good source of intel on how to keep a man … any guess on how she would do that? (LOL).

But, in all importance, we all need to put our trust in ourselves as we must be confident and, we must try to attain a sense of surety that the decisions we make will be the ‘right’ one.

.:: d.b ::.

Hip-Hop, Music Videos

Nas ft. Keri Hilson – Hero

July 11, 2008 d dot b Leave a comment

Nas ft. Keri Hilson – Hero

Universal must be very happy with this song because it is a single that they can actually promote and market – not saying that the new album for Nas titled ‘Untitled’ is bad; its just too geo-political-socially charged that I have a hard time seeing Universal Music Group pushing a lot of marketing dollars behind Nas’ latest effort.

This song features Keri Hilson (Timbaland fame) and is produced by Polow Da Don – hit producer of such hits for Rich Boy, Young Buck, Young Jeezy, and others. Nas’ albums usually don’t have big time producers such as Polow as Nas likes to go for the grimier, dark, and more somber beats.

Of course we all know that Nas was suppose to name his album ‘Ni****’ but that would be too hard to get retailers such as Wal-Mart and HMV to go along with such a bold and emotionally-charged word. To check out the ‘Ni****’ mixtape though featuring some album tracks and other material, download it free here:

DJ Green Lantern & Nas

Nas drops ‘Untitled’ on July 15, 2008 and is no doubt to continue to spark debate and dialogue …. which hip-hop is supposed to do.

.:: d.b ::.

Health, Social, Technology

Masdar City

July 6, 2008 d dot b Leave a comment

Masdar City
The Green City in an Oil Rich Country

The project is headed by the Abu Dhabi Future Energy Company (ADFEC). Initiated in 2006, the project is projected to cost US$22 billion and take some eight years to build, with the first phase scheduled to be complete and habitable in 2009. The city will cover 6 square kilometres (2.3 sq mi) on a site 6.4 km² (2.5 sq mi) in size and will be home to 50,000 people and 1,500 businesses, primarily commercial and manufacturing facilities specialising in environmentally-friendly products, and an expected 40,000 workers will commute to the city daily. It will also be the location of a university, the Masdar Institute of Science and Technology (MIST), which will be assisted by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Automobiles will be banned within the city; travel will be accomplished via public mass transit and personal rapid transit systems, with existing road- and railways connecting to other locations outside the city.

Masdar City will be the latest of a small number of highly planned, specialized, research and technology-intensive municipalities that incorporate a living environment, similar to Novosibirsk, Russia or Tsukuba Science City, Japan.

Renewable Resources

Masdar will employ a variety of renewable power sources. Among the first construction projects will be a 40 to 60 megawatt solar power plant, built by the German firm Conergy, which will supply power for all other construction activity. This will later be followed by a larger facility, and additional photovoltaic modules will be placed on rooftops to provide supplemental solar energy totalling 130 megawatts. Wind farms will be established outside the city’s perimeter capable of producing up to 20 megawatts, and the city intends to utilise geothermal power as well. In addition, Masdar plans to host the world’s largest hydrogen power plant.

Water management has been planned in an environmentally-sound manner as well. A solar-powered desalination plant will be used to provide the city’s water needs, which is stated to be 60 percent lower than similarly sized communities. Approximately 80 percent of the water used will be recycled and waste water will be reused “as many times as possible,” with this so-called greywater being used for crop irrigation and other purposes.

The city will also attempt to reduce waste to zero. Biological waste will be used to create nutrient-rich soil and fertiliser, and some may also be utilised through waste incineration as an additional power source. Industrial waste, such as plastics and metals, will be recycled or repurposed for other uses.

References:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masdar_City

.:: d.b ::.

Isn’t it messed that one of the world’s richest oil nations is taking this green initiative, while nations such as the United States have not even considered taking on such a project?

Entertainment, Popular Culture

Any correlations to Hip-Hop?? A rock perspective.

July 5, 2008 d dot b Leave a comment

The Demise of Classic Rock from ‘Dwight K. Shrute’
When the Establishment gets involved with the music

First off, If y’all don’t know about the hit NBC show ‘The Office’, it is one of the better shows on television that is clever and witty. The U.S. version of the The Office is an adaptation of a British version with the same name. Now, Dwight K. Shrute is one of the show’s staple characters that has a funny personality; he can be described as the loyal office employee who is the ultra geek and has the brownest nose in the office. His real name is Rainn Wilson, and he provided an interesting comment on the decline of rock, and its current state …

“I grew up listening to a lot of classic rock. I loved AC/DC, Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin, but as soon as it started to get girly, as soon as they were wearing women’s blouses, mascara and eyeliner – guy-liner I call it – as soon as it went there then it kind of lost me.”

I don’t know about you, but basically Rainn is saying that when rock music got commercialized with other elements, the music was no longer the focus, and the image become more important than the actual musical content. Relating this to hip-hop, I think that many of the older hip-hop generation (anyone 25 and older or so) can identify when hip-hop’s focus was no longer on the music, but on the actual image. Once it got commercialized, and corporations got more involved, and big music video budgets, many of the devoted hip-hop heads got turned off. In my reminiscing, this happened during the ‘Diddy years’, when P. Diddy came in with his flamboyant style and kinda changed the face of Hip-Hop as we know it … and it really has not looked back since. Remember P. Diddy and the L.O.X. with the shiny suits, the bling bling of Cash Money, the foreign cars in the videos? All this was spawned in the mid 90’s, and now in 2008, the formula is still the same, and the content in the music has gotten even dumber.

But I guess, as with Rock, Jazz, R&B, and other black-created music, once the establishment (corporations) get involved with a musical genre, the artform — the essence of the music loses something that is really, really, really hard to get back.

.:: d.b ::.

P.S. And just in case you don’t know who Rainn Wilson is, here are some clips:

Social, Work

Pussification pt. 2: No, I don’t subscribe

July 3, 2008 d dot b Leave a comment

Pussification pt. 2: No, I don’t subscribe
A more succinct way of disagreement
View pt.0 and get familiar

Society has become increasingly tolerant and sensitive to the needs of others; looking at our etiology we have come a long way from the tyrant, barbarian behaviour of our ancestors. As of late, after the feminist and civil rights movement, in an era I like to call ‘social movements’, we have a hard time of saying ‘no’ to the simplest of things. ‘No’ is a refusal skill that implies a disagreement or rejection to something (concept, question, etc.). Instead of saying ‘no’ we will substitute our disagreeable or rejectable response for longer, and more sensitive responses that can lead to ambiguity – meaning the respondee may be lead to believe that there is hope to their question.

So why do we do this? Having respect, and being respectful for others feelings could be a reason; as we are taught such behavior from a young age. However, we can still have respect for others, and their feelings, without embodying the qualities of pussification (pretentiousness, fake, ambiguity, non-genuine, not ‘keeping it real’).

Here are some real world examples on how you can un-pussificate yourself:

Can you help me out and do some of my work?

old: “I’ll see if I can get around to it”
try: “No, I’m not going to do your work”.

Did you mess up on that 1st quarter report?

old: “I’m not sure, I don’t think I did that”
try: “No, I don’t have any recollection to what you are referring to”

Honey, can we go see Sex and the City?

old: “I’ll see, I got a lot of things to do later on”
try: “No, that is for chicks, I’m a man”.

Do you like my outfit?

old: “Its okay”
try: “No, its wack – it needs work.”

Want to hit up the club tonight?

old: “Not really, I’m kind of busy tonight, and the club is kind of expensive, and I’m trying to save my money”
try: “No, that club that your going to is weak and has ugly women”

In all, people respect those that give respect, and furthermore, people can – or at least should, respect an honest opinion. Its okay to disagree with someone – there may be some notion or perception that saying ‘no’ may lead to an argument of some kind, when in all honesty it is not a start of an argument per say, but the start of a discussion, a dialogue of sorts. An open exchange of opposing, differing, and even similar views – try it sometimes, you may be surprised with the results, and even with what you learn.

.:: d.b ::.

~ Life in B Major ~

Technology

BMW GINA

June 25, 2008 d dot b Leave a comment

BMW GINA

The car with skins. An interesting approach to where the automobile may be going.

“With the development of the BMW GINA Light Visionary Model the BMW Group presents trendsetting solutions. Chris Bangle gives us a first impression of the ideas behind the process of sculpturing an experimental study. “

Love, Relationships

Silly Monkeys! Part 4: The Girlfriend’s Friend

June 23, 2008 d dot b Leave a comment

Silly Monkeys! Part 4: The Girlfriend’s Friend
Get Familiar with the Silly Monkeys!:
Part 3: The Bouncer
Part 2: The Fly Designer
Part 1: The Banker
Part 0: An Abstract

At first she is nice. She can be pleasant and kind as she tries to sift through you; you know, to determine if you are right for her girl. She knows more about you than she leads on – she knows your good and your bad, your insecurities, your buttons. She is supposed to be happy for her girl, keyword is ‘supposed to’. However she has grown up with her for awhile, and with woman, girls, females, and lets include humans in general, there will always exist a competitive spirit. She wants to be happy for her, but its very hard for her to be happy for her, if she isn’t happy.
It says that thou shall not covet thy’s neighbor’s wife, maybe it should have just stopped at ‘thou shall not covet’, as if it were such a case, she would be a sinful sinner.

And she tries so hard to attain what she sees, and when she realizes that it is a paramount task, she gets calculating. She thinks, ‘well, if she is happy and I’m not, then …’ she gets a case of crab-bucketitis – If she can’t ascend herself to feel like her friend, then she brings the b*tch down.
Misery loves company, and she is looking for fellow employees – and she will try to bring you down to, directly or indirectly, and she has the power to do it. She knows, and will play off of your insecurities, jealousy, anything to get you emotional and cause a riff between you and your girlfriend.

But I play a different chord.

Fellas, understand that she only wants to break up your melody, because she wants a facsimile of your melody.

And with vocals like her, she will never harmonize, but will always be off-key.

And maybe the girlfriend will realize it as such and will end the sonata.

Aside:
I once experienced this dim creature and she purposefully and skillfully was able to affect me and caused problems between my girlfriend and I. Oh man, she was clever, she pushed a button that she knew would upset and trouble me. She got me. I was able to recover, naturally, because I am the trampoline-man (everytime I fall, I land on a trampoline). However she left her mark, and even Ajax, Vim, or Comet can’t clean it. I haven’t dealt fully with this silly monkey, maybe I will, maybe I won’t, but I can say that in the future, if I ever encounter such a silly monkey again, I’ll be sure to turn the silly monkey into a buffoon – expose her for what she really is, and what she is trying to do to her ‘friend’ (girlfriend); And that is what irked me most about this particular silly monkey, is that she was maybe trying to hurt me, but she ended up hurting her friend, and their friendship.

Silly monkey.

.:: d.b ::.

Social

I Don’t Know her anymore … (that’s a good thing)

June 20, 2008 d dot b Leave a comment

I Don’t Know Her Anymore … (That’s a good thing)
Discourse: change, history, adaptation Type: poetic style

I was told all about her;
Her nasty past – filled with chains, whips, confinement, guns;

She was troubled;
Filled with hate and fear for others, she built her self-esteem at the expense of others;
Breaking spirits, hopes, and dreams was synonymous with her name – as she rose to great powers;

Everyone wanted to have a piece of her though, a piece of her ‘dream’ – as her dream promised personal fulfillment for others whom worked hard and were dedicated;
For a long time, many were scared of her sight, her glare, her voice, her disdain for others;
She even separated herself from others – only to associate with those that resembled her;
And for those that were separated from her, were meant to feel below feces;
She enacted rules to sustain her behavior, guns to enforce her behavior, and persuasion & repetition to germinate her behavior;
However, the ‘goodness’ in man eventually led to a subside of her behavior;
And even thought her rules were gone, she had left a mark – a putrid stain that will never be forgotten;

Now, I don’t get her, she seems so different;
Giving hopes and dreams to those she views different, but the difference I can’t measure – don’t even no where to start;
As it appears she is allowing a pigment change over her deep-entrenched red heart;
Maybe she has changed for the good – a complete 180 of what she was before;
Or perhaps it’s a change that will only be understood with time – as no amount of money could provide solace to all she hurt;
But her change may be retribution enough to those that had lost all hope with her;
One man is testing how much she has changed or is changing;

She was lost, and maybe, just maybe she has been ‘found’ or is in the process ‘finding’ … only time will tell

.:: d.b ::.

Economics, Entertainment, Hip-Hop

The Financial Times of Rappers

June 13, 2008 d dot b Leave a comment

The Financial Times of Rappers
Virtues: financial responsibility, planning, guidance

Let’s see how the ‘Greatest Rapper Alive’ handles his money:

Here’s a snippet from The Smoking Gun:
According to a lawsuit filed last month by businessman LeMarck deAndre, Lil Wayne (real name: Dwayne Carter) agreed to pay at least $120,000 for the repair and refurbishment of a 1999 Bentley, which is pictured below. However, after the 25-year-old rapper belatedly paid $78,000 for work on his ride, deAndre contends, Carter refused any further payments. deAndre’s December 18 Alameda Superior Court complaint, which you’ll find here, charges that Carter owes nearly $80,000 in fees for the storage of the burgundy Bentley, which apparently was going to be shipped from northern California to Louisiana, home to Carter and Cash Money Records, the label Carter headed until last year.

So what’s Wayne’s reason for not paying? deAndre says he never gave him one and people in Cash Money stopped answering his calls. But interestingly enough, Wayne was negotiating a publishing deal for several hundred thousand dollars around the same time he had this $120k+ worth of work done to this car. So, in typical Lil Wayne behavior, he was spending money he didn’t have yet. And it backfired. Peep the 7 page complaint for damages here. Interestingly enough, I’m also told that the Bentley was originally a gift from his “Daddy” Baby and was signed over in Dwayne Carter’s name. Why Baby gave Wayne a Bentley he had to pay the bills on himself is beyond me…but not surprising. Meanwhile, Lil Wayne is threatening to blame this whole incident on his managers, but his managers say Wayne frequently ignored their advice and/or just didn’t tell them about his purchases.

——
d.b says:
Well, if this claim is true, it will just be another example of how the young, rich, and powerful are not financially astute. It could also say that these artists’ have a circle around them that are not looking out for their best interests. Or, it could be that these artists’ are just stupid and even though they are presented with the education and skills to manage their money, they are mentally unequipped to handle such a capacity.

The ‘Best Rapper Alive’ may need the best ‘Debt Consolidation’ Agent alive.

.:: d.b ::.

Producer of Things