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	<title>nicknelson.net</title>
	<link>http://nicknelson.net</link>
	<description>intrigue, cognomina, and handcrafted masterworks</description>
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		<title>The Idiocy of People</title>
		<description><![CDATA[Just for fun, I decided I would go and have a look at Amazon Canada member reviews for BBC&#8217;s 2006 nature-doc stunner, Planet Earth.  It rates a pretty solid 4.5 overall, kudos BBC, kudos, David Attenborough.
If you&#8217;ve seen the show, you know that it&#8217;s the best thing you had ever seen up to that point in your life, by and large.  That said, it struck me as shocking, bizarre, outrageous even, that there were *5* ratings of 1-star-out-of-5.  That is to say, *5* people rated it the lowest possible value.
To ...]]></description>
		<link>http://nicknelson.net/2010/04/the-idiocy-of-people/</link>
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		<title>&#8220;Crazy&#8221; 8s</title>
		<description><![CDATA[I&#8217;m sorry to take a dump on your favourite childhood passtime, but dump I must.  You see, I disagree with the idea that the 8s were &#8220;crazy&#8221;.  The 8s were the trailblazers.  The 8s were the ones who bucked tradition.
All the other cards have to &#8220;follow suit&#8221; &#8212; you know, oh, a club, well, you have to be another club if you want in.
That shit is basically racist!
Not to mention conformist.  It&#8217;s sad really, it makes me sad.  Sad like a boy stroking the hair of his ...]]></description>
		<link>http://nicknelson.net/2009/08/crazy-8s/</link>
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		<title>Good Morning my Ass</title>
		<description><![CDATA[How many times has some fuckhead been like &#8220;good morning!&#8221; to you, all chipper?  This makes a number of GROUNDLESS assumptions.
Groundless Assumption #1 : That this is a morning.
Groundless Assumption #2 : That this is good.
Okay, generally it is morning. Though, oft is the case, I will call someone who works in a &#8220;place of business&#8221; at around 12:05pm and they will proudly answer the phone with &#8220;Good morning, Gerhardt (for example) speaking&#8230;&#8221; and I will be quick to say &#8220;this is no longer morning.  If you check the ...]]></description>
		<link>http://nicknelson.net/2009/07/good-morning-my-ass/</link>
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		<title>What happened to the fade-out?</title>
		<description><![CDATA[It's just too easy.  A conclusion is the capstone of the work.  To merely reduce the physical stimulus of a work until it is indistinguishable from background noise is an insult to all involved.  It's an analogue to drifting slowly to sleep.  How could these proud artists subscribe to such a thing?  I would wager that they didn't even do the fade-out themselves, some ornery audio-boardsman who fancies himself a "technician" likely finger-straddled fader and rode it down to -999db. 

Thankfully, for reasons that nobody understands now, the fade-out has itself faded from the public discourse, being replaced by bombastic and confident conclusions that divide themselves from the great whisper of nothingness with maximum contrast.  Conclusions are drawn hard and there can be no mistaking when a work of art ends and nothingness begins.  ]]></description>
		<link>http://nicknelson.net/2009/07/what-happened-to-the-fade-out/</link>
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		<title>The myth of non-conformity</title>
		<description><![CDATA[In non-collectivist societies, most individuals seek to impress upon others their distinction, their originality, their uniqueness&#8211; this isn&#8217;t surprising, considering the emphasis on individualism in assessing the value of a person.  Personal value&#8211; value as a human, and social status, run in lockstep with job status, income, intelligence, and other indices that all rely on exclusivity: something that one individual has that others do not.  These indices and collections, of friends, of money, of unique attributes, serve not only to reinforce an individual&#8217;s value but establish it.
Money is a valuable ...]]></description>
		<link>http://nicknelson.net/2009/07/the-myth-of-non-conformity/</link>
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		<title>Why Polite Is Not</title>
		<description><![CDATA[People are always so polite.  Sometimes, if you are impolite, polite people look at one another and slowly, gently, and disappovingly, shake their head.  They slightly and politely pucker their lips and slightly and politely sneer-up their nostrils.  They glance at eachother so slowly, so politely, and with such brevity, that the shared message is &#8220;the fellow is so impolite that I&#8217;m giving you the bare minimum response needed to acknowledge what we both know: that this urchin is despicable.&#8221;
I contend, however, that their politeness is false; is a travesty.  ...]]></description>
		<link>http://nicknelson.net/2009/06/why-polite-is-no/</link>
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		<title>Tim Hortons needs Branding Advice</title>
		<description><![CDATA[When one goes into, say, your Starbucks, or even, dare I say, your Timothy's, one is greeted with a brand phalanx.  Everything from the music you hear to the layout of the tables to the presentation of the napkins is a fastidiously orchestrated fugue that belabours the brand ethos. ]]></description>
		<link>http://nicknelson.net/2009/05/tim-hortons-needs-branding-advice/</link>
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		<title>Never look Foolish Again</title>
		<description><![CDATA[There is probably, and I say &#8220;probably&#8221; half-heartedly (but that whole-heartedly), probably nothing more frustrating than people and their bizarre elevator behaviour.  Sometimes someone will get off, become confused, get back on, and then explain to everyone who just witnessed their unassailable asininity that &#8220;that wasn&#8217;t my floor&#8221; or &#8220;oh I guess that wasn&#8217;t the eighth&#8221;, as though now their behaviour is permissible because they acknowledged it with a wry half-smile.  Think again.
It was quite obvious when you stepped out of the elevator for but three seconds before returning that ...]]></description>
		<link>http://nicknelson.net/2009/05/never-look-foolish-again/</link>
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		<title>Contrivances of the Matters Intellectual that Govern Stochastic Process in the Political Economy of Nation States</title>
		<description><![CDATA[A fascinating paradigm shift has occurred, and I would be remiss if not to comment.
Indeed, so important it is, that I decided to make the very first post about it.
Stochastic processes, in particular, those involved in the political econo&#8211; ahh, fuck it, here&#8217;s a bunch of pictures of pineapples with sunglasses on!!!
]]></description>
		<link>http://nicknelson.net/2009/04/contrivances-of-the-matters-intellectual-that-govern-stochastic-process-in-the-political-economy-of-nation-states/</link>
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