New (to me) history, art, lit, politics resources:
Encyclopedia of British History 1500-1950
Avalon Project: The Middle-East, A Documentary Record, 1916-2001
Western European Subject Guide: History/Politics since 1945
ORB: Online Reference Book for Medieval Studies
The Geoffrey Chaucer Website Homepage
Archives of American Art (Smithsonian)
Witchcraft, Demonology & Inquisition
Humbul Humanities Hub
--
Watching: The New World
Shushing: the neodiluvian age
Monday, July 10, 2006
Wednesday, July 05, 2006
aside
Just finished reading a massive number of book reviews. To celebrate, I show you this:
It came from Sterling's blog. It's weird and I like it. It looks like a sentient key-lime pie monster horse alien ectoplasm beastie.
--
Listening: Will Wright and Brian Eno talking and playing on generative systems (like Spore and ambient compositions) @ The Long Now Foundation. Awesome.
It came from Sterling's blog. It's weird and I like it. It looks like a sentient key-lime pie monster horse alien ectoplasm beastie.
--
Listening: Will Wright and Brian Eno talking and playing on generative systems (like Spore and ambient compositions) @ The Long Now Foundation. Awesome.
interview: Andrew Albanese: Library Journalist
Andrew Richard Albanese is currently associate editor, news and features, Library Journal. His freelance work has appeared in numerous publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Lingua Franca, and Salon.com.
Here he joins us for an interview, and we talk journalism, tech trends, and media matters for libraries.
--
W: As a reporter on the information-science beat, what sorts of topics have your most attention at the moment?
A: Well, in a word, Google. When I first began covering the information beat in 1999 I don't think I fully grasped how fortunate I was. I do now. Every day, thanks to the pace of technology, new issues emerge, usually with bracing, short-term "ain't it cool" aspects, and at the same time deep, complex, potentially dark implications for the future--implications that often fail to even show up on the radar of most citizens. All of which makes my job all the more meaningful. In many ways, speaking as a reporter, Google's emergence is a blessing. Not the service, nor the company per se, but as such a ubiquitous, remarkably nimble giant, the way they are pushing to the fore so many critical ideas about what our information future should look like. These are big, heady topics, Privacy, Net Neutrality, the erosion of the public's interest in copyright law in the age of the click on license. These are all hot topics for me at the moment. Without Google's pushing, I wonder how many of these issues would find their way to citizens.
How do you cull out hype to get at the real change-making stories?
You know, really, that's the job. More often than not you never know what a change-making story is when it's happening. For example, one of my most memorable scoops came when a librarian mentioned to me that she saw a collection of Malcolm X's personal documents were being sold on eBay. I took a look, did some digging, and reported it, thinking it odd that this valuable collection was being auctioned on online. Well, it turned out to be a major story, and, long story short, that collection today now resides at the New York Public Library. Now, all I did was report. The change? That came after. I could not have predicted nor wished for a better outcome, but I think that's a good example of how reporters operate. A reporter's responsibility is not so much to think about whether a story is change-making. It's more immediate--get the facts, spell names right, get it out. What happens or changes after that is out of our hands.
So what's your take on 'the future of the book'?
Ah, the end of the world as we know it. I've been terribly amused by John Updike's recent tirades. I'm sure some overblown thirteenth century poet sneered at the demise of iambic pentameter in much the same way. Coming from a publishing background, and now as a writer, I personally think print books will survive, primarily because print is as perfect a technology as we have for reading. You open a book and right away you're reading. No buttons, no batteries. You drop a book and it doesn't shatter. And nothing so far has shown the staying power of good old de-acidified paper. But this false notion that future generations should eschew the benefits of technology or multi-media in favor of staid, extended print tracts because of cultural reasons, well, that's nonsense. I think it's immodest of writers like Mr. Updike to assume that our culture is, after all these centuries, finally going down in ruins because his chosen medium may be changing beyond his control. The bookselling world has consolidated and essentially killed independent bookstores, yet keyword searching and snippets represent the demise of literature? Please. It's comical to me. I wanna shout, 'Hey Updike, what's with the "kids today" routine!?'
But there's a lot that's not so comical. When we talk about the future of the book, I think what we're largely talking about--at least now--is the future of the book industry. And a few things jump out at me. First, the industry is pretty inefficient in light of current technologies. Books are costly, relatively slow to get ideas to market, environmentally unfriendly, books must be printed, warehoused, shipped, shelved. There was a day when this was as efficient a system as could be. But any reasonable person would have to say that day has passed or is passing at least. What concerns me now more than the survival of the book is that today's major media companies, after a period of consolidation, are using DRM and poor legislation like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to essentially create a separate rights regime for digital content, one governed by click-on licenses rather than copyright law. Believe this--many publishers will quickly get over their professed fondness for print once they learn how to control and exploit every single usage of their content in digital formats, essentially relegating "fair use" to a quaint old analog-era idea. So before any kind of real future of the book can be realized, I think some idea of balance must be restored to the copyright realm.
And what's your take on 'the future of the library patron'? I mean, if 'books' change, how will our users change?
I gather you're seeing more and more of that change every day. From what I've seen, I think the future of the library patron is more tied to things like MySpace than books or even Google. Beyond searching for information, libraries now have the capacity, I'll say even the mission, now more than ever, to create and nurture communities around their collections, both online and in the real world. This is an enormous opportunity. How libraries react to this moment in time will say a lot about our collective future. In an age where information exists all around us library patrons are more than ever looking for a value-added information experience. It would be a shame if the General Electrics and Rupert Murdochs of the world came to dominate that space. I know of no profession more poised or more prepared to make a difference in the information age than librarians.
Now and then I get worked up over the lack of libraries in the world. A) How do you think we can promote libraries in the world's poorest countries, and B) Should we work to promote our own (liberal Western) model of libraries, or will that have to change too?
I'd say get even more worked up, stay worked up, Woody. What always shocks me is that still, in today's day and age, the information age, communities are still all to willing to balance their budgets by cutting library budgets. I see this as a direct threat--that may sound dramatic, but still. I know I don't have to tell you that libraries truly are the core of our democracy. And what a bargain for what they deliver. I'd like to give more thought about what to do in poorer countries, but I'm still fairly worked up about what we still need to do in our own communities. For poorer nations, though, I would say infrastructure is the key issue. That includes roads, schools, hospitals and libraries.
What do you think, as a journalist, about editorializing in the news? I'm thinking of the running commentaries on FOX news (and also the intermittent surly remarks on NPR).
Well, it horrifies me, but at the same time the idea of an unbiased press has always struck me as a dangerous myth. Journalists are human beings. And most of us are dealing with non-mathematical facts, you know? On an individual level, like anyone else, we cannot escape and often can't even recognize our biases. Where it gets more complicated, and troubling, however, is when you look at the current corporate structure of our media system. An individual editorializing is democracy in action. A mega-company sponsoring an editorial agenda under the guise of unbiased journalism is a subversion of democracy. If you look at who owns major media companies in the U.S. today, the consolidation of wealth and the web of potential conflicts therein, it can be very disheartening. You can see the outright failure of our major media system in the run-up to war in Iraq. Networks and news organizations were far more interested in ratings, awards, rantings and especially in the great, prize-winning images they would beam back of their embedded reporters sheathed in kevlar riding tanks through a smoldering desert. Meanwhile, a war was being planned on false or at best incorrect pretenses. That's a major problem. I don't mind so much when reporters editorialize. But it's disturbing when you have Jayson Blairs and Judith Millers at the New York Times and have entire corporate TV networks with programs and reporters that all editorialize along the same ideological lines, under tag lines like "fair and balanced."
I've got to ask you about "leaks" from the government to the press. Some say there is a long, strong, historical precedent for leaking -- that it's an important way to get information to the people. Others say that leaking is a betrayal of trust and is dangerous to our democracy. What's your view?
I think both are probably true. But leaks are used just as much by the government as they are decried. Witness Valerie Plame. The question for me is: which should I fear more? A potential national security breach, or an administration that cows us all into relinquishing the oversight we as a nation have deemed necessary to preserve democratic ideals. He who controls information controls all, and personally I'm not comfortable putting my safety in the hands of what the executive branch deems classified, certainly not after the mistakes that have been made and the disclosures we've seen about domestic spying. I think it was Nixon, during Watergate, that had his attorneys argue that his power was as absolute as a Louis XIV, only four years at a time, and subject to no court in the land except impeachment. That's not the way I, or luckily the Supreme Court sees it, and I am thankful there are citizens brave enough to bear the truth under threat.
What general advice would you give librarians on working with the media?
Speak up! When you look at how many lines of media libraries get in local newspapers, it is remarkably small. And I know this has a lot to do with time issues--most libraries are busy being librarians rather than PR reps. But establishing relationships with your local newspapers is vital, especially when it comes to budget time.
So what sorts of projects do you have coming up for the rest of the year?
Well, believe it or not I'm writing a book about the book, centered around the litigation surrounding Google book search. I'm also hoping to begin film school next spring and hope to start moving into doing documentary work at some point. Regardless, you can rest assured I plan to stay involved with libraries and information issues forever.
--
Thanks Andrew!
Here he joins us for an interview, and we talk journalism, tech trends, and media matters for libraries.
--
W: As a reporter on the information-science beat, what sorts of topics have your most attention at the moment?
A: Well, in a word, Google. When I first began covering the information beat in 1999 I don't think I fully grasped how fortunate I was. I do now. Every day, thanks to the pace of technology, new issues emerge, usually with bracing, short-term "ain't it cool" aspects, and at the same time deep, complex, potentially dark implications for the future--implications that often fail to even show up on the radar of most citizens. All of which makes my job all the more meaningful. In many ways, speaking as a reporter, Google's emergence is a blessing. Not the service, nor the company per se, but as such a ubiquitous, remarkably nimble giant, the way they are pushing to the fore so many critical ideas about what our information future should look like. These are big, heady topics, Privacy, Net Neutrality, the erosion of the public's interest in copyright law in the age of the click on license. These are all hot topics for me at the moment. Without Google's pushing, I wonder how many of these issues would find their way to citizens.
How do you cull out hype to get at the real change-making stories?
You know, really, that's the job. More often than not you never know what a change-making story is when it's happening. For example, one of my most memorable scoops came when a librarian mentioned to me that she saw a collection of Malcolm X's personal documents were being sold on eBay. I took a look, did some digging, and reported it, thinking it odd that this valuable collection was being auctioned on online. Well, it turned out to be a major story, and, long story short, that collection today now resides at the New York Public Library. Now, all I did was report. The change? That came after. I could not have predicted nor wished for a better outcome, but I think that's a good example of how reporters operate. A reporter's responsibility is not so much to think about whether a story is change-making. It's more immediate--get the facts, spell names right, get it out. What happens or changes after that is out of our hands.
So what's your take on 'the future of the book'?
Ah, the end of the world as we know it. I've been terribly amused by John Updike's recent tirades. I'm sure some overblown thirteenth century poet sneered at the demise of iambic pentameter in much the same way. Coming from a publishing background, and now as a writer, I personally think print books will survive, primarily because print is as perfect a technology as we have for reading. You open a book and right away you're reading. No buttons, no batteries. You drop a book and it doesn't shatter. And nothing so far has shown the staying power of good old de-acidified paper. But this false notion that future generations should eschew the benefits of technology or multi-media in favor of staid, extended print tracts because of cultural reasons, well, that's nonsense. I think it's immodest of writers like Mr. Updike to assume that our culture is, after all these centuries, finally going down in ruins because his chosen medium may be changing beyond his control. The bookselling world has consolidated and essentially killed independent bookstores, yet keyword searching and snippets represent the demise of literature? Please. It's comical to me. I wanna shout, 'Hey Updike, what's with the "kids today" routine!?'
But there's a lot that's not so comical. When we talk about the future of the book, I think what we're largely talking about--at least now--is the future of the book industry. And a few things jump out at me. First, the industry is pretty inefficient in light of current technologies. Books are costly, relatively slow to get ideas to market, environmentally unfriendly, books must be printed, warehoused, shipped, shelved. There was a day when this was as efficient a system as could be. But any reasonable person would have to say that day has passed or is passing at least. What concerns me now more than the survival of the book is that today's major media companies, after a period of consolidation, are using DRM and poor legislation like the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to essentially create a separate rights regime for digital content, one governed by click-on licenses rather than copyright law. Believe this--many publishers will quickly get over their professed fondness for print once they learn how to control and exploit every single usage of their content in digital formats, essentially relegating "fair use" to a quaint old analog-era idea. So before any kind of real future of the book can be realized, I think some idea of balance must be restored to the copyright realm.
And what's your take on 'the future of the library patron'? I mean, if 'books' change, how will our users change?
I gather you're seeing more and more of that change every day. From what I've seen, I think the future of the library patron is more tied to things like MySpace than books or even Google. Beyond searching for information, libraries now have the capacity, I'll say even the mission, now more than ever, to create and nurture communities around their collections, both online and in the real world. This is an enormous opportunity. How libraries react to this moment in time will say a lot about our collective future. In an age where information exists all around us library patrons are more than ever looking for a value-added information experience. It would be a shame if the General Electrics and Rupert Murdochs of the world came to dominate that space. I know of no profession more poised or more prepared to make a difference in the information age than librarians.
Now and then I get worked up over the lack of libraries in the world. A) How do you think we can promote libraries in the world's poorest countries, and B) Should we work to promote our own (liberal Western) model of libraries, or will that have to change too?
I'd say get even more worked up, stay worked up, Woody. What always shocks me is that still, in today's day and age, the information age, communities are still all to willing to balance their budgets by cutting library budgets. I see this as a direct threat--that may sound dramatic, but still. I know I don't have to tell you that libraries truly are the core of our democracy. And what a bargain for what they deliver. I'd like to give more thought about what to do in poorer countries, but I'm still fairly worked up about what we still need to do in our own communities. For poorer nations, though, I would say infrastructure is the key issue. That includes roads, schools, hospitals and libraries.
What do you think, as a journalist, about editorializing in the news? I'm thinking of the running commentaries on FOX news (and also the intermittent surly remarks on NPR).
Well, it horrifies me, but at the same time the idea of an unbiased press has always struck me as a dangerous myth. Journalists are human beings. And most of us are dealing with non-mathematical facts, you know? On an individual level, like anyone else, we cannot escape and often can't even recognize our biases. Where it gets more complicated, and troubling, however, is when you look at the current corporate structure of our media system. An individual editorializing is democracy in action. A mega-company sponsoring an editorial agenda under the guise of unbiased journalism is a subversion of democracy. If you look at who owns major media companies in the U.S. today, the consolidation of wealth and the web of potential conflicts therein, it can be very disheartening. You can see the outright failure of our major media system in the run-up to war in Iraq. Networks and news organizations were far more interested in ratings, awards, rantings and especially in the great, prize-winning images they would beam back of their embedded reporters sheathed in kevlar riding tanks through a smoldering desert. Meanwhile, a war was being planned on false or at best incorrect pretenses. That's a major problem. I don't mind so much when reporters editorialize. But it's disturbing when you have Jayson Blairs and Judith Millers at the New York Times and have entire corporate TV networks with programs and reporters that all editorialize along the same ideological lines, under tag lines like "fair and balanced."
I've got to ask you about "leaks" from the government to the press. Some say there is a long, strong, historical precedent for leaking -- that it's an important way to get information to the people. Others say that leaking is a betrayal of trust and is dangerous to our democracy. What's your view?
I think both are probably true. But leaks are used just as much by the government as they are decried. Witness Valerie Plame. The question for me is: which should I fear more? A potential national security breach, or an administration that cows us all into relinquishing the oversight we as a nation have deemed necessary to preserve democratic ideals. He who controls information controls all, and personally I'm not comfortable putting my safety in the hands of what the executive branch deems classified, certainly not after the mistakes that have been made and the disclosures we've seen about domestic spying. I think it was Nixon, during Watergate, that had his attorneys argue that his power was as absolute as a Louis XIV, only four years at a time, and subject to no court in the land except impeachment. That's not the way I, or luckily the Supreme Court sees it, and I am thankful there are citizens brave enough to bear the truth under threat.
What general advice would you give librarians on working with the media?
Speak up! When you look at how many lines of media libraries get in local newspapers, it is remarkably small. And I know this has a lot to do with time issues--most libraries are busy being librarians rather than PR reps. But establishing relationships with your local newspapers is vital, especially when it comes to budget time.
So what sorts of projects do you have coming up for the rest of the year?
Well, believe it or not I'm writing a book about the book, centered around the litigation surrounding Google book search. I'm also hoping to begin film school next spring and hope to start moving into doing documentary work at some point. Regardless, you can rest assured I plan to stay involved with libraries and information issues forever.
--
Thanks Andrew!
how to tie a knot: the visual guide
All kinds of knot-tying lives here: http://www.tollesburysc.co.uk/Knots/Knots_gallery.htm.
See animated explanations for 18 different knots, their purposes, and how to tie them at this little online library. Here's an Angler's Loop:
See animated explanations for 18 different knots, their purposes, and how to tie them at this little online library. Here's an Angler's Loop:
swicki geek-out
Librarians (rightfully) have their doubts about swickis. So far the only swickis I can find are all by eurekster -- all from one corporate source. But I think they have potential, and I like them because they can be built, trained, and customized. You can tell your swicki which sort of sources are better for the searches you run. You can suggest better sites, and demote sites that return poor results -- which could make for a sort of "dumb" expert-systems type of a.i. in an a quickie-wiki, stop-gap sort of way. So I think they have potential -- but they need lots of TLC to make them work well. The big question is: is the amount of time and work you have to put into them worth the results? I wish I knew. But there's only one way to find out, and that's to invest the time and see what they can do.
Over at LISNews there's a post with a link to one of the three swickis I've built: "archival swicki"... and the name is a bit misleading. It's meant to be a search portal "for hard to find texts, images, audio, art, public-domain images and information, electronic books, and archival media," not just archives per se. I built it because I couldn't find a good, single search engine for all of these kinds of resources. Archive.org comes closest -- but it leaves out lots of the museum-type stuff and obscure manuscript facsimile type stuff that I want included (archive.org is included in the list of sites this swicki looks at first, though).
Another is the ISHUSH swicki, which is supposed to look for "technology, magick, media, information science and libraries, and artistic and cultural innovations, at least." This was the first one I put together, and is more of an experiment, less of a good focused searcher I think -- but it's got it's own uses, and is meant to hunt that, you know, certain kind of meta-informational fringe-technology occult historical library science stuff.
Finally there's the Spime Watch, for info related to 'ubiquitous computing', spimes, kirkyans, RFIDs, folksonomic indexing, etc.
If you have a chance and have the need, take these for a spin and see how they do you. If you're working with LIS type swickis of any sort (or swicki-type search engines that have nothing to do with eurekster, even), I'd like to see them.
--
Reading: Rupert Murdoch's MySpace
Listening: The Postal Service (thanks to April and Brad, each).
Over at LISNews there's a post with a link to one of the three swickis I've built: "archival swicki"... and the name is a bit misleading. It's meant to be a search portal "for hard to find texts, images, audio, art, public-domain images and information, electronic books, and archival media," not just archives per se. I built it because I couldn't find a good, single search engine for all of these kinds of resources. Archive.org comes closest -- but it leaves out lots of the museum-type stuff and obscure manuscript facsimile type stuff that I want included (archive.org is included in the list of sites this swicki looks at first, though).
Another is the ISHUSH swicki, which is supposed to look for "technology, magick, media, information science and libraries, and artistic and cultural innovations, at least." This was the first one I put together, and is more of an experiment, less of a good focused searcher I think -- but it's got it's own uses, and is meant to hunt that, you know, certain kind of meta-informational fringe-technology occult historical library science stuff.
Finally there's the Spime Watch, for info related to 'ubiquitous computing', spimes, kirkyans, RFIDs, folksonomic indexing, etc.
If you have a chance and have the need, take these for a spin and see how they do you. If you're working with LIS type swickis of any sort (or swicki-type search engines that have nothing to do with eurekster, even), I'd like to see them.
--
Reading: Rupert Murdoch's MySpace
Listening: The Postal Service (thanks to April and Brad, each).
Monday, July 03, 2006
libSOS and 'archival swicki'
I've posted a few new items over libSOS in the last week or so, mainly free magazine giveaways and free book promotions. I've also added a swicki to the site, http://archival-swicki.eurekster.com/, an archival media related search portal -- it grabs mostly from university archives, free e-book collections, and public-domain related repositories. Have a look, take it for a spin, and feel free to submit sites for it if you see where it needs tweaking. This engine is mainly meant for teachers, librarians, students, writers and artists who need access to some of this more obscure and hidden material. Content ranges wildly, but is focused mainly on literature and arts. I made it because I often find myself in need of some kind of meta public-domain/archival interface, and haven't been able to find a good one yet for all my needs -- I hope this swicki will be that interface. We shall see. That's all the news that fits.
Sunday, July 02, 2006
about superman returns
I saw it Friday afternoon -- the wife and I have been a little nutty for Superman since we got on a kick to watch all the old Reeve movies a few months ago. Then we got into Smallville. I thought all this buildup would climax with Superman Returns... But it didn't. We're into season 4 of Smallville now, and despite a seeming return to 'freak of the week' episodes, I'm on the whole much more interested in the Smallville plotlines than I was in Bryan Singer's take on Superman. A few reasons follow... and, warning, spoilers ahead.
. After the second Superman movie back in 1980 (where this one is supposed to pick up from), Lois knows that Clark is Superman. I can forgive this movie for taking license with the particulars of 'what happened' in a movie from 26 years ago, but I think going back to a state of ignorance about Clark/Superman between Clark and Lois was a mistake. We have a missed opportunity here to explore a really weird, kind of creepy, distinctly post-human relationship between these two. If you'll recall, Clark loved Lois and Lois loved Superman. Superman couldn't love Lois, and Lois didn't love Clark. It's a love triangle between two people. This movie could have dug much deeper into the weird mechanics of a superhuman and secret-identity love affair, and taken us deeper into what it means to love an alien who can't love you back (an alien that's also pretending to be a human who does love you very much)... but it just sort of left things at blah between them. Although I thought the attempt to show Lois' conflict (being in love with two great guys) was good enough, I sure thought it could have been more complicated, and in a good way. We could've handled it.
. Brandon Routh was an adequate Superman. But I agree with the reviewer who said he didn't really bring anything new to the role. The wife said he looked perfect, "like a doll" -- and he was certainly likeable enough. But we, as a culture, have had some 74 years now to metabolize Superman, and we're ready for the tougher stuff. At least I am. Show us how odd his life is, how much he struggles to be like us, show us his ambivalence toward his powers -- show that he feels disdain and disappointment towards humanity more often than we (humans) would want to know about. Cough up some ugly (or at least alien) feelings now and again. We've been waiting for that for a long time, and we still haven't gotten it. Maybe it's more a problem with this concept of Superman, or with the script, than with the actor -- but I think he could have made his Superman less conventional if he'd tried harder, even with such a safe script.
. Which brings me to the deadest lines Routh delivered in the movie -- sitting on his sleeping son's bed, telling him how life was going to be... This moment should have been emotional (painful for him, really) and full of conflicted feelings (like: oh no, I didn't raise the boy -- oh no, Richard did -- oh no, is a child able to handle knowing who I really am? -- oh no, doesn't he deserve to know that he's Kryptonian? -- oh no, I can't raise my own son! etc.). But instead the scene is cardboard. It was a cardboard sandwich with a side of glue and some paperclip salad. That was Routh's big chance to get us, and he dropped the ball.
. Lex wasn't as complex as he needed to have been. Maybe it's because I've been watching Rosenbaum on Smallville and he's set such a high bar -- but Kevin Spacey just didn't play the Luthor I wanted to see. I needed more of the "gods are selfish beings who fly around" attitude to be turned into some kind of "therefore I'm going to rid the world of Superman forever -- for the good of us all" action in order to sympathize with him. I really could have sympathized with a villain who believes he has everyone's best interest at heart. I sympathized with Cosmo in Sneakers, you know. I can't sympathize with a simple evil dude. Spacey (or the writers) could have made Luthor into more of a Lex we know from Smallville -- someone who becomes "evil" because he tries too often to do good and has his face put in the mud for it over and over again. Even the just-plain-scary stuff Spacey tried to do, like when he goes from polite super-villain banter to a crazy shout-down of Lois on the ship, didn't really affect me. I wasn't, like, real scared. I'm a little bit beyond the pg-13 view of 'good vs evil' and I wish the makers of this film had been too.
. All that said, the movie had plenty of good about it. The good stuff is pretty easy to see, so there's no need to lay it out here. Superman returns (and man, I wanted to cheer) when he saves that plane. Perfect. But next time, let's go for something a hair more mature, huh? Superman deserves it and so do we.
. After the second Superman movie back in 1980 (where this one is supposed to pick up from), Lois knows that Clark is Superman. I can forgive this movie for taking license with the particulars of 'what happened' in a movie from 26 years ago, but I think going back to a state of ignorance about Clark/Superman between Clark and Lois was a mistake. We have a missed opportunity here to explore a really weird, kind of creepy, distinctly post-human relationship between these two. If you'll recall, Clark loved Lois and Lois loved Superman. Superman couldn't love Lois, and Lois didn't love Clark. It's a love triangle between two people. This movie could have dug much deeper into the weird mechanics of a superhuman and secret-identity love affair, and taken us deeper into what it means to love an alien who can't love you back (an alien that's also pretending to be a human who does love you very much)... but it just sort of left things at blah between them. Although I thought the attempt to show Lois' conflict (being in love with two great guys) was good enough, I sure thought it could have been more complicated, and in a good way. We could've handled it.
. Brandon Routh was an adequate Superman. But I agree with the reviewer who said he didn't really bring anything new to the role. The wife said he looked perfect, "like a doll" -- and he was certainly likeable enough. But we, as a culture, have had some 74 years now to metabolize Superman, and we're ready for the tougher stuff. At least I am. Show us how odd his life is, how much he struggles to be like us, show us his ambivalence toward his powers -- show that he feels disdain and disappointment towards humanity more often than we (humans) would want to know about. Cough up some ugly (or at least alien) feelings now and again. We've been waiting for that for a long time, and we still haven't gotten it. Maybe it's more a problem with this concept of Superman, or with the script, than with the actor -- but I think he could have made his Superman less conventional if he'd tried harder, even with such a safe script.
. Which brings me to the deadest lines Routh delivered in the movie -- sitting on his sleeping son's bed, telling him how life was going to be... This moment should have been emotional (painful for him, really) and full of conflicted feelings (like: oh no, I didn't raise the boy -- oh no, Richard did -- oh no, is a child able to handle knowing who I really am? -- oh no, doesn't he deserve to know that he's Kryptonian? -- oh no, I can't raise my own son! etc.). But instead the scene is cardboard. It was a cardboard sandwich with a side of glue and some paperclip salad. That was Routh's big chance to get us, and he dropped the ball.
. Lex wasn't as complex as he needed to have been. Maybe it's because I've been watching Rosenbaum on Smallville and he's set such a high bar -- but Kevin Spacey just didn't play the Luthor I wanted to see. I needed more of the "gods are selfish beings who fly around" attitude to be turned into some kind of "therefore I'm going to rid the world of Superman forever -- for the good of us all" action in order to sympathize with him. I really could have sympathized with a villain who believes he has everyone's best interest at heart. I sympathized with Cosmo in Sneakers, you know. I can't sympathize with a simple evil dude. Spacey (or the writers) could have made Luthor into more of a Lex we know from Smallville -- someone who becomes "evil" because he tries too often to do good and has his face put in the mud for it over and over again. Even the just-plain-scary stuff Spacey tried to do, like when he goes from polite super-villain banter to a crazy shout-down of Lois on the ship, didn't really affect me. I wasn't, like, real scared. I'm a little bit beyond the pg-13 view of 'good vs evil' and I wish the makers of this film had been too.
. All that said, the movie had plenty of good about it. The good stuff is pretty easy to see, so there's no need to lay it out here. Superman returns (and man, I wanted to cheer) when he saves that plane. Perfect. But next time, let's go for something a hair more mature, huh? Superman deserves it and so do we.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
parents: raise a book lover
At WebMDBlog, Dr Steven Parker shares some thoughts on raising kids who love to read. He says, in part:
Found via Parent Hacks.
"First, let me state that I'm not at all a TV, media, computer opponent (for example, I thought the Academy of Pediatrics was ill-advised to forbid TV for kids under 24 months), as long as they are used in moderation and with close parental attention to the content. The electronic media will certainly be a fact of life for your kids and, hopefully, a positive one.
Having said that, these omnipresent 21st century TV and computer-based experiences have three qualities that worry me:
- Everything moves at a fast pace. Even the great Sesame Street has taken some heat for promoting short attention spans as their lessons fly by at a dizzying pace (and they are the good guys). Most TV images are fleeting: BIF! BAM! BOOM! Process it quick and move on to the next image.
- These experiences are essentially passive ones. Everything is laid out for the watcher, unlike books or even radio. We don't have much work to do; mostly we're along for the ride. (I love Harry Potter, but I was sorry they made the movies. It was heartwarming to see children so excited about reading, each with his/her own image of Hogwarts and Harry, fueled by imagination. Now the need for that creative leap is gone - the movies have done all the work for us and it's hard to imagine Harry as anything other than the actor who plays him.)
- There are no long, complicated stories, no slowly developing narrative flow, no time or need to anticipate and guess what is coming next. Our kids are being raised on a diet of short stories instead of novels.
Could such experiences have unintended long-term consequences?"
He goes on to encourage us to give kids books very early, and suggests that the earlier a child forms relationships with books (instead of e-media) the better chance they'll have to see books as fun, and to build positive associations with reading.Found via Parent Hacks.
net neutrality
Here are some arguments for "network neutrality" from:
Tim Berners-Lee (link)
(pic links to .ram video)
Vint Cerf
Tim Berners-Lee (link)
(pic links to .ram video)
Vint Cerf
and a Ninja.
comics 11 (just a note)
In case you don't know, I'm a big fan of Planetary. I like the story so much I wrote a review of the last volume. It's one of those things that just keeps getting better -- doesn't loose anything with age, either. Fine, fine stuff.
--
Reading: not Black Hole for a few days. Jeezus. That's depressing stuff.
Weather: a little too ironicaloristic
--
Reading: not Black Hole for a few days. Jeezus. That's depressing stuff.
Weather: a little too ironicaloristic
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
info viz 9: dotplots
Here's your Shakespeare. All of it.
"The concatenation order of Shakespeare's works was determined by a combinatorial optimization algorithm that attempts to position dark grid boxes near the main diagonal, emphasizing cluster of similar documents. Without automatic reordering it would be impossible to see the large dark cluster in the upper left formed by the European Histories. The tokens matching the most in this cluster (the dominant vocabulary in the European Histories after term weighting) include Richard, God, Duke, John, Lord, Henry, Sir, death, Queen, York, France, hand, and blood."
More: "Dotplots were first used in Biology to study homology (self-similarity) in genetic sequences. These diagonals indicate an almost-perfect match between two DNA sequences. Unlike the early dotplots used in Biology, we have generalized the technique to allow arbitrary weighting functions and the plotting of much larger amounts of data."
A sort of, in this case, visual expression of bibliometric data...
Build your own here (link). "This version uses character tokenization with no weighting, reconstruction, or approximation, so every pair of matching characters is plotted."
--
Reading: Black Hole by Charles Burns
"The concatenation order of Shakespeare's works was determined by a combinatorial optimization algorithm that attempts to position dark grid boxes near the main diagonal, emphasizing cluster of similar documents. Without automatic reordering it would be impossible to see the large dark cluster in the upper left formed by the European Histories. The tokens matching the most in this cluster (the dominant vocabulary in the European Histories after term weighting) include Richard, God, Duke, John, Lord, Henry, Sir, death, Queen, York, France, hand, and blood."
More: "Dotplots were first used in Biology to study homology (self-similarity) in genetic sequences. These diagonals indicate an almost-perfect match between two DNA sequences. Unlike the early dotplots used in Biology, we have generalized the technique to allow arbitrary weighting functions and the plotting of much larger amounts of data."
A sort of, in this case, visual expression of bibliometric data...
Build your own here (link). "This version uses character tokenization with no weighting, reconstruction, or approximation, so every pair of matching characters is plotted."
--
Reading: Black Hole by Charles Burns
info viz 7: this is your desktop
If you're at all interested in organizing information, please watch this prototype demonstration of BumpTop Desktop:
(found via InfoAesthetics)
(found via InfoAesthetics)
Monday, June 26, 2006
comics 10
Reading Transmet again. I'm surprised to find it more mature than I remember. All the fixation on excrement and gorging on monkey meat reads as a kind of ruse. The pomp and self-righteous tirades of Spider Jerusalem are fun, as they always were, but also sadder this time around -- like the antics come from anger that's been mellowed for a long time in Spider's loneliness (or Warren Ellis's). If that makes sense. I'm really enjoying them this time, though the transhumanism stuff is passe now -- and that's scary on its own, as its only been a few years since I read them for the first time, and since they've only been around for, what, nine years now? I guess the ideas are starting to show their age. But that's the thing. Transmet jump-started alot of the popular notions of transhumanism a long time before anybody but the scientists and sociologists were thinking about this stuff at all. It's still good to revisit the story.
(pic links to Amazon: Transmet)
(pic links to Amazon: Transmet)
Friday, June 23, 2006
info viz 6: global warming imagery
In light of the report from the National Academies of Science that "human activities are responsible for much of the recent warming"...
I thought it might do to post a few pretty pictures.
--
(from Flood Maps by Alex Tingle and NASA)
Bye Louisiana. Bye Florida. And downtown Houston is beach-front property.
--
(from NASA, 2003: "Warming of Arctic May Affect Worldwide Climate")
Icecap shrinking in the last part of the 20th Century...
--
(from BBC News)
The "hockey stick" graph of global warming -- temps spike lately, huh?
I thought it might do to post a few pretty pictures.
--
(from Flood Maps by Alex Tingle and NASA)
Bye Louisiana. Bye Florida. And downtown Houston is beach-front property.
--
(from NASA, 2003: "Warming of Arctic May Affect Worldwide Climate")
Icecap shrinking in the last part of the 20th Century...
--
(from BBC News)
The "hockey stick" graph of global warming -- temps spike lately, huh?
Chinese pyramids
"Chinese archaeologists have discovered a group of ancient tombs shaped like pyramids, dating back at least 3,000 years, in Jiaohe City of northeast China's Jilin Province. The tombs, covering an area of 500,000 square meters (1,000 meters long and 500 meters wide), were found after water erosion exposed part of a mountain, revealing two of the tombs. Six smaller tombs had eroded away leaving no indications of their original scale and appearance, but the biggest tomb, located on the south side of the mountain, could clearly be discerned as a pyramid shape with three layers from bottom to top." (From Xinhua news service - Link; via warrenellis.com)
Part of the Jiahoe complex -- image from UNESCO.
Here's a page on other Chinese pyramids, mostly near Xi'an (link).
Part of the Jiahoe complex -- image from UNESCO.
Here's a page on other Chinese pyramids, mostly near Xi'an (link).
Thursday, June 22, 2006
teaching 6
*UPDATE*
Blaming the students is not the answer.
I've got a lot to learn about teaching.
--
Got angry teaching today. Library instruction for an English Comp. class, two sections. The first section had twice as many students as the second, and by the end of the second class, I was disgusted.
The disgusting thing is, I had no tangible reason to feel that way. The students were as passive as ever -- no heckling, no real rudeness.
After nearly an hour of exploring the intricate details of database searching, library catalogs, truncation, and the use of the index, the students just aren't as illuminated with joy and curiousity as I'd hoped. I'm up there moving, talking, asking them questions, and they just kind of sit. And watch me. And listen. And it's clear that this is way, waay more information than they want -- but it's not as much information as they will need. If they only knew how much more there was to say about this stuff, they'd be dismayed -- kind of in the same way we were dismayed by the Star Wars Kid?
Hilarity with a dash of incredulous pity? Well.
Nobody wants to be the Star Wars Kid. So this feeling like I'm the butt of some unsaid joke steadily rises with each class. And my response is to get sterner, gruffer. To point my beard and shake my fistzealously as I shake the ceiling and sling sweat with old timey library science revival hymns bustin out the eardrums of those that have not the ears to hear. And I've started smirking. If they don't respond to my questions, I ask dumber questions. That's not a great direction to go in. That's not, like, real progressive or mature or anything, and I'm not proud.
It's a tricky situation. These classes are guests in my library -- I don't want to come off as smug and cocky and disdainful. I want to welcome them and teach them.
Maybe I should wear a silly hat. Devise a scavenger hunt. Toss out Tootsie Rolls. Hell.
--
Reading: Jim Carroll: The Book of Nods
Reading: Arthur Edward Waite: The Book of Ceremonial Magic
Reading: Kusen by Livingston Roshi
Reading: Sterling's blog at WIRED, Beyond the Beyond
Reading: Sukdhev's World
Reading: Comics Worth Reading
Reading: Beers of the World
Listening: The Ricky Gervais Podcast
Listening: Wessex Archaeology Events
Listening: The Viking Youth Power Hour
Weather: heavy weather coming -- must remember to park the truck on high ground tonight.
Blaming the students is not the answer.
I've got a lot to learn about teaching.
--
Got angry teaching today. Library instruction for an English Comp. class, two sections. The first section had twice as many students as the second, and by the end of the second class, I was disgusted.
The disgusting thing is, I had no tangible reason to feel that way. The students were as passive as ever -- no heckling, no real rudeness.
After nearly an hour of exploring the intricate details of database searching, library catalogs, truncation, and the use of the index, the students just aren't as illuminated with joy and curiousity as I'd hoped. I'm up there moving, talking, asking them questions, and they just kind of sit. And watch me. And listen. And it's clear that this is way, waay more information than they want -- but it's not as much information as they will need. If they only knew how much more there was to say about this stuff, they'd be dismayed -- kind of in the same way we were dismayed by the Star Wars Kid?
Hilarity with a dash of incredulous pity? Well.Nobody wants to be the Star Wars Kid. So this feeling like I'm the butt of some unsaid joke steadily rises with each class. And my response is to get sterner, gruffer. To point my beard and shake my fist
It's a tricky situation. These classes are guests in my library -- I don't want to come off as smug and cocky and disdainful. I want to welcome them and teach them.
Maybe I should wear a silly hat. Devise a scavenger hunt. Toss out Tootsie Rolls. Hell.
--
Reading: Jim Carroll: The Book of Nods
Reading: Arthur Edward Waite: The Book of Ceremonial Magic
Reading: Kusen by Livingston Roshi
Reading: Sterling's blog at WIRED, Beyond the Beyond
Reading: Sukdhev's World
Reading: Comics Worth Reading
Reading: Beers of the World
Listening: The Ricky Gervais Podcast
Listening: Wessex Archaeology Events
Listening: The Viking Youth Power Hour
Weather: heavy weather coming -- must remember to park the truck on high ground tonight.
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
note to self
The Politics of Libraries
I Historical overview
political orientations of famous figures in librarianship
II The implicit politics of 20th Century libraries
Carnegie,
The public library, the university library, desegregation, political rebellion,
Computers for all (Gates grants)
III The implicit politics of 21st Century libraries: where we are heading
Open-source, user-centered, tagging, cellphones, away from hierarchy
folksonomy, personomy, autonomous 'books'
information agency? ANT
IV Universal access: Beyond Democracy
Beyond representation toward democratic (atomized) individual participation
transhumanismpolitics of "AI", augmented reality
teaching 5
This from reBang Blog, and I'll take the liberty of quoting the post in full:
-
"They Won’t Write The Songs
Who's to blame if our students don't understand plagiarism? You've got one guess.
I see instructors gloss over this all the time -- passing out an 'academic ethical standards agreement' and having their students sign that they 'get it' without ever explaining what the hell it means. In my library we push the importance of citing sources constantly -- but it isn't enough. If this is a 'copy-paste' cultural problem, we've got a real challenge on our hands -- even as such noble causes as Creative Commons encourages borrowing and sharing (without explicit cautions?). I heard one student tell a teacher "but it isn't like stealing, it's just words." Just words, but valueless words? How can anyone born after 1975 not understand the importance of giving props to those you sample from?
What am I missing here? I want to read the reBang post as a knee-jerk, reactionary response -- and I don't agree that we're on the long slide, ultimately, toward Boring Culture... but I do think he makes a good point. We've just gotta work harder to impress the importance of originality in arts and in scholarship.
That, or we have to be willing to let our current academic values go through a serious mutation, if not an extinction.
{{But, hey, wait a minute... Look at this post. The interpretation of this story is my own, but the links are the citations. This medium is teaching us to use props and samples, citations and references in new ways altogther -- and just because it's new doesn't mean it's not legit. 2 legit 2 quit!}}
--
By the by, check out some of Sven's (of reBang) ideas in a previous post (link).
--
Weather: a moderate "5" on the UV index.
-
"They Won’t Write The Songs
And they won’t design the products. Or author the books. Or develop significant new ideas. Not when the culture in which they’re living thinks it’s okay to copy. And that’s the cultural issue/problem being reported over on the BBC today (Link) and it’s something about which I’ve also expressed concern. From the short report:
Many of the new generation of students raised on the internet see nothing wrong with copying other people’s work, says Professor Sally Brown.
If I had to guess I’d say we’ll have a creativity peek in the short term as artists/musicians/writers/designers use the tools now available to them to do some interesting things. But after that, if there’s no change in the Copy Culture, I expect a long slide into Boring. So stock up on exciting, innovative stuff now." (Link to post)
-
This is from a designer, a techno-savvy artist who has an eye for social change -- and he seems to me, usually, to be a fairly optimistic guy. And he's expecting a "long slide into Boring" if things go on as they are in regards to the "copy culture"??
Who's to blame if our students don't understand plagiarism? You've got one guess.
I see instructors gloss over this all the time -- passing out an 'academic ethical standards agreement' and having their students sign that they 'get it' without ever explaining what the hell it means. In my library we push the importance of citing sources constantly -- but it isn't enough. If this is a 'copy-paste' cultural problem, we've got a real challenge on our hands -- even as such noble causes as Creative Commons encourages borrowing and sharing (without explicit cautions?). I heard one student tell a teacher "but it isn't like stealing, it's just words." Just words, but valueless words? How can anyone born after 1975 not understand the importance of giving props to those you sample from?
What am I missing here? I want to read the reBang post as a knee-jerk, reactionary response -- and I don't agree that we're on the long slide, ultimately, toward Boring Culture... but I do think he makes a good point. We've just gotta work harder to impress the importance of originality in arts and in scholarship.
That, or we have to be willing to let our current academic values go through a serious mutation, if not an extinction.
{{But, hey, wait a minute... Look at this post. The interpretation of this story is my own, but the links are the citations. This medium is teaching us to use props and samples, citations and references in new ways altogther -- and just because it's new doesn't mean it's not legit. 2 legit 2 quit!}}
--
By the by, check out some of Sven's (of reBang) ideas in a previous post (link).
--
Weather: a moderate "5" on the UV index.
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
viking youth podcasts
You'll want to listen to the guys at Viking Youth Power Hour.
They're savvy, they're funny, and they're gutsy. They debate tough topics with comportment, honesty, and ease -- and their shows never lack for zeal or ferocity. Discussions range from the specifics of magickal rites to the finer uses of psychedelics, and from the unanswered questions of the 9/11 attack to intelligent critiques of pop culture icons. It's often fringe, and it's always smart.
--
Reading: The Social Life of Books
Feeling: kinda lit up.
They're savvy, they're funny, and they're gutsy. They debate tough topics with comportment, honesty, and ease -- and their shows never lack for zeal or ferocity. Discussions range from the specifics of magickal rites to the finer uses of psychedelics, and from the unanswered questions of the 9/11 attack to intelligent critiques of pop culture icons. It's often fringe, and it's always smart.
--
Reading: The Social Life of Books
Feeling: kinda lit up.
carnival of the infosciences
I'll be hosting the Carnival on Monday, July 31. Submission info is here (link).
The theme will be "Low Tech Solutions" -- that is, what sorts of horse-sense tools and skills do you use to solve problems in the library? And how do you do it without the coolest, newest, web2.0-est gizmos?
But if you want to submit a post that's off that theme, that's fine too. I'll take a look at anything. Even jokes. I'm easy.
The theme will be "Low Tech Solutions" -- that is, what sorts of horse-sense tools and skills do you use to solve problems in the library? And how do you do it without the coolest, newest, web2.0-est gizmos?
But if you want to submit a post that's off that theme, that's fine too. I'll take a look at anything. Even jokes. I'm easy.
teaching 4
You know that John Cale song, "Fear is a Man's Best Friend"?
Standing waiting for a man to show
Wide eyed one eye fixed on the door
This waiting's killing me, it's wearing me down
Day in day out, my feet are burning holes in the ground
Darkness warmer than a bedroom floor
Want someone to hold me close forever more
I'm a sleeping dog, but you can't tell
When I'm on the prowl you'ld better run like hell
You know it makes sense, don't even think about it
Life and death are just things you do when you're bored
Say fear's a man's best friend
You add it up it brings you down
It's a good song. Teaching classes brings it to mind.
I've found two main ways to be when teaching -- two ways that I am when I teach for the library.
One is -- I project my toughness, my hard skin, my mean eyes out into the crowd. I project a slight disdain for my students. I send an armored voice out against the back walls, and it bounces around like a gunhappy-sonofabitch. A student slides in her seat, sneaks a chuckle with a pal, sighs too loud -- I grow more distant, more disgusted, ever more tired. You don't need me? Well you'd be wrong, sisters and brothers, to think I need you. I know this already, and I'm doing you a favor by being here. I'm the guy you need to talk to. I'm master-control.
Two is -- I see the humor in this situation. I breathe from my center, my belly, and I chuckle plenty. I look them each in eye, and move spontaneously, like I would in my kitchen. This is just a set of tools, and it's very far from personal. Stick with me for an hour, and let's learn how to find information. I'm a messenger. I'm nearly, actually, in the way of the message. I get over myself, quit hanging loose in the doorway, let the information about the information come through as clearly as it may. Better if you don't even notice me. So: right from the center, and with humor if at all. You've got it; you're a smart mob.
So that's the ways it is with me. I like the latter, better. The former cranks up as defensive maneuvering when I feel nervous (and I feel nervous lots when I'm up in front of a crowd). The key to calling that second attitude in is to slow down, breathe from my belly, and, as best I can, try to be centered in the here and now.
I can be the bearded alpha primate commanding attention, demanding understanding from my audience -- or I can just act from my center, be myself, accept the nervousness enough to realize that there are far more important things happening in the room. These students are learning how to use their library, and some for the first time. This is it. Here and now. The only way I can be attentive enough to meet this need is to get out of the way a little more. Play a little, if it takes that, to deflate my own fears and let these people learn.
--
Watching: John Cale: Fear (Is a Man's Best Friend)
Reading: Libraryola:"Opaque to the Untrained Eye."
Standing waiting for a man to show
Wide eyed one eye fixed on the door
This waiting's killing me, it's wearing me down
Day in day out, my feet are burning holes in the ground
Darkness warmer than a bedroom floor
Want someone to hold me close forever more
I'm a sleeping dog, but you can't tell
When I'm on the prowl you'ld better run like hell
You know it makes sense, don't even think about it
Life and death are just things you do when you're bored
Say fear's a man's best friend
You add it up it brings you down
It's a good song. Teaching classes brings it to mind.
I've found two main ways to be when teaching -- two ways that I am when I teach for the library.
One is -- I project my toughness, my hard skin, my mean eyes out into the crowd. I project a slight disdain for my students. I send an armored voice out against the back walls, and it bounces around like a gunhappy-sonofabitch. A student slides in her seat, sneaks a chuckle with a pal, sighs too loud -- I grow more distant, more disgusted, ever more tired. You don't need me? Well you'd be wrong, sisters and brothers, to think I need you. I know this already, and I'm doing you a favor by being here. I'm the guy you need to talk to. I'm master-control.
Two is -- I see the humor in this situation. I breathe from my center, my belly, and I chuckle plenty. I look them each in eye, and move spontaneously, like I would in my kitchen. This is just a set of tools, and it's very far from personal. Stick with me for an hour, and let's learn how to find information. I'm a messenger. I'm nearly, actually, in the way of the message. I get over myself, quit hanging loose in the doorway, let the information about the information come through as clearly as it may. Better if you don't even notice me. So: right from the center, and with humor if at all. You've got it; you're a smart mob.
So that's the ways it is with me. I like the latter, better. The former cranks up as defensive maneuvering when I feel nervous (and I feel nervous lots when I'm up in front of a crowd). The key to calling that second attitude in is to slow down, breathe from my belly, and, as best I can, try to be centered in the here and now.
I can be the bearded alpha primate commanding attention, demanding understanding from my audience -- or I can just act from my center, be myself, accept the nervousness enough to realize that there are far more important things happening in the room. These students are learning how to use their library, and some for the first time. This is it. Here and now. The only way I can be attentive enough to meet this need is to get out of the way a little more. Play a little, if it takes that, to deflate my own fears and let these people learn.
--
Watching: John Cale: Fear (Is a Man's Best Friend)
Reading: Libraryola:"Opaque to the Untrained Eye."
Monday, June 19, 2006
happy birthday: Aung San Suu Kyi
Happy Birthday to Aung San Suu Kyi. She's still under house arrest, but maybe she can have some fun today. She's worked hard for the Burmese, so let's remember her for a moment.
comics 9: Superman is real?
'About a decade ago, Alvin Schwartz, who wrote Superman comic strips in the 1940s and ‘50s, published one of the great Odd Books of our time. In An Unlikely Prophet, reissued in paperback this spring, Schwartz writes that Superman is real. He is a tulpa, a Tibetan word for a being brought to life through thought and willpower. Schwartz also says a Hawaiian kahuna told him that Superman once traveled 2,000 years back in time to keep the island chain from being destroyed by volcanic activity. Maybe it happened, maybe it didn’t, but it does sound like a job for Superman – all in a day’s work for a guy who can squeeze coal into diamonds. Schwartz then tells of his own encounter with Superman in a New York taxi, when he learned firsthand that Superman’s cape is, in fact, more than mere fabric.(From Wired: "The Myth of Superman" by Gaiman and Rogers)'
Could it be that Superman and John Constantine have more than comic books in common? Constantine's creator, Alan Moore, has claimed to have met Constantine in real life on more than one occasion. This, if it is true, goes some way to support Grant Morrison's view of comics as hyper-sigils, fictional characters as sentient.
So be kind to your comic books. And all your books. And your DVDs. And each other. Thanks.
Could it be that Superman and John Constantine have more than comic books in common? Constantine's creator, Alan Moore, has claimed to have met Constantine in real life on more than one occasion. This, if it is true, goes some way to support Grant Morrison's view of comics as hyper-sigils, fictional characters as sentient.
So be kind to your comic books. And all your books. And your DVDs. And each other. Thanks.
Friday, June 16, 2006
info viz 5
Three nifty items today:
1. The Earth, it seems, has an unevenly distributed gravitational field. The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) is mapping it:
(pic links to quicktime movie)
--
2. On the lighter side, map your personality at http://www.personaldna.com/. They claim: "We've developed a new kind of personality test which is free, fun, fast and accurate. Our test has been designed by a team of professional psychologists. It employs innovative answering techniques, allowing for increased accuracy and an enjoyable process."
It's kinda neat.
--
3. Finally, trade info with the people you greet with just a handshake?
Media Lab Europe is working on a system of personal, wearable, infrared transceivers for automatically trading contact information. (Via http://infosthetics.com/)
--
Reading: The Practical Archaeologist by Jane McIntosh
Listening: Pulp: Common People
1. The Earth, it seems, has an unevenly distributed gravitational field. The Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) is mapping it:
(pic links to quicktime movie)
--
2. On the lighter side, map your personality at http://www.personaldna.com/. They claim: "We've developed a new kind of personality test which is free, fun, fast and accurate. Our test has been designed by a team of professional psychologists. It employs innovative answering techniques, allowing for increased accuracy and an enjoyable process."
It's kinda neat.
--
3. Finally, trade info with the people you greet with just a handshake?
Media Lab Europe is working on a system of personal, wearable, infrared transceivers for automatically trading contact information. (Via http://infosthetics.com/)
--
Reading: The Practical Archaeologist by Jane McIntosh
Listening: Pulp: Common People
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
interview: James Hughes: Techno-social Changesurfer
Following is an interview with James Hughes, sociologist and transhumanist of note, and author of Citizen Cyborg (Westview, 2004).
--
> 1. What's new with you?
Yikes. About fifty things a day. I feel like I'm about to be swept under by accelerating change all the time. Need to spend more time on my meditation cushion.
But some things at the top of the agenda:
- Following up on our successful Human Enhancement Technologies and Human Rights conference at Stanford, May 26-28, with a new set of priorities and programs to propose to the IEET and WTA directors
- Helping with the Transvision conference in Helsinki August 17-19
- Working on a second book called Cyborg Buddha
- Trying to pull together a book on technoprogressive social policy for the IEET
- Writing various essays and chapters
- Consulting
- Parenting
- Clearing brush from my yard and trying to fix my hot tub
> 2. What is transhumanism, and why does it matter?
Transhumanism is the merger of our oldest and deepest aspirations to transcend the limiitations of our mind and body, to be wiser, happier, healthier, longer lived and to have more capabilities, with the democratic values and scientific culture of the European Enlightenment.
We advocate for everyone's right to use safe human enhancement technologies even if we move beyond some people's limited ideas of what humans are supposed to be.
> 3. In recent e-mails, we were talking about the relationship between transhumanism and Buddhism. Can you suggest a few points of synthesis between the two? A few points of fission?
Buddhism is a faith tradition and set of spiritual practices whose core idea is that human beings can become more than human by application of mental technology and self-discipline. As such it is probably the most compatible of the older faiths with transhumanism. But it is also quite
challenging for many transhumanists in its insistence that there is no discrete, continuous ego that could be protected and perpetuated. Many of the immortalists, for instance, find that a threatening idea, but I think we will increasingly see the truth of the emptiness of the self as
we apply neurotechnologies and life extension.
> 4. If I may say so, it looks like we'll all be speaking Mandarin in 100 years. How do China's global (and extraterrestrial) ambitions impact the transhuman agenda?
One of my nightmares is an authoritarian China using coercion to achieve the full benefits of enhancement technologies for their population, and using neurotechnologies to remold their citizens into compliant workers and soldiers. The answer of course is not for the West to ban these technologies, but to make them as widely available to free people to use in freely determined ways, so that we get the even greater advantage to be had from a billion individual experimenters. China also highlights the importance of a global campaign of democratization and political globalization, to ensure human rights, democratic accountability, collective security and fair, sustainable development. Only a democratized world united around a democratic, accountable transnational authority can stand down the new forms of enhanced authoritarianism we are sure to see.
> 5. In the broadest sense of the word, will posthumans need libraries?
Yes, but electronic ones of course. Although some people will still want to read physical originals, I think books and journals will be transcended by richer, more complex and hyperlinked electronic media, engaging all the senses in ways just hinted at by virtual reality games
today.
> 6. There seems to be some really exciting academic work going on that's affiliated with or carried out by transhumanists -- looks like everything from ethnography and gerontology to nanotechnology and engineering. What are the fields that most excite you, and why?
One of the advantages of being a sociologist is that I can legitimately follow and be excited about everything. Like everybody else, my personal hopes for life extension and medical progress focus much of my attention there, and I'm trying to get more knowledgeable about cognition and neuro-physiology for my book Cyborg Buddha.
> 7. I listen to your Changesurfer Radio, and have enjoyed it for years. There's no denying that you're a science-fiction fan, is there? Who are you reading right now?
Just finishing the 1600 pages of Peter Hamilton's Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained, which projects a very plausible transhuman future and polity under serious pressure, implacable threat from hostile aliens. Precisely the kind of imagining we need for the challenges ahead. Next up is Ken MacLeod's Learning the World and Verner Vinge's Rainbow's End.
> 8. Okay. I want to ask you about military and police applications of the transhuman or posthuman vision. The notion of a world in which the world's major states have bundled the technology up and use it to control their populations and wage wars against each other is pretty scary. How can the transhumanist movement, and the technology associated with it, be made widely and democratically available without also making it available to criminals, autocrats, and terrorists?
We can't. We will have to weigh the risks and benefits of wide access to each technology. Making life extension tech widely available has low risks and wide benefits; yes bad guys will live a long time, but so what? Making neurotechnology widely available has more risks, so we will just have to punish those who use them for bad ends. Making nano-weapons widely available has low benefits and high risks, so I would restrict their possession to democratically accountable military and police. Etc.
> 9. Realistically, does the post-Singularity world look more like a Bill Joy or a Ray Kurzweil scenerio to you?
I have more of a cyberpunk future in mind - tech that breaks down and eats stuff as often as it works, government that is more transparent and accountable, but even more scary and destructive when it goes off the rails, people who are smarter, happier and healthier, but individual sociopaths who wreak havoc with unimaginable ease. I have faith we can
muddle through to a better place, but it will be wild and dangerous, and will require constant effort and attention.
> 10. What sort of positive collaborations can you see between transhumanists and librarians?
Librarians can buy lots of future-oriented literature and non-fiction for their libraries. Transhumanists can work to ensure that they don't get caught up in what Jaron Lanier calls "digital Maoism," proposing the complete replacement of expert knowledge by collective knowledge aggregation software, and thereby contribute to the denigration of the important role librarians and other knowledge experts play.
> 11. One more question: what sort of projects are you working on for the rest of the year?
Well these are more my agenda for the next couple of years, but:
1. Researching and writing Cyborg Buddha
2. Promoting a global anti-aging research program
3. Building the IEET and WTA
4. Raising my kids
5. Pursuing my quest to transcend sleep altogether
--
Thanks Dr. J!
--
> 1. What's new with you?
Yikes. About fifty things a day. I feel like I'm about to be swept under by accelerating change all the time. Need to spend more time on my meditation cushion.
But some things at the top of the agenda:
- Following up on our successful Human Enhancement Technologies and Human Rights conference at Stanford, May 26-28, with a new set of priorities and programs to propose to the IEET and WTA directors
- Helping with the Transvision conference in Helsinki August 17-19
- Working on a second book called Cyborg Buddha
- Trying to pull together a book on technoprogressive social policy for the IEET
- Writing various essays and chapters
- Consulting
- Parenting
- Clearing brush from my yard and trying to fix my hot tub
> 2. What is transhumanism, and why does it matter?
Transhumanism is the merger of our oldest and deepest aspirations to transcend the limiitations of our mind and body, to be wiser, happier, healthier, longer lived and to have more capabilities, with the democratic values and scientific culture of the European Enlightenment.
We advocate for everyone's right to use safe human enhancement technologies even if we move beyond some people's limited ideas of what humans are supposed to be.
> 3. In recent e-mails, we were talking about the relationship between transhumanism and Buddhism. Can you suggest a few points of synthesis between the two? A few points of fission?
Buddhism is a faith tradition and set of spiritual practices whose core idea is that human beings can become more than human by application of mental technology and self-discipline. As such it is probably the most compatible of the older faiths with transhumanism. But it is also quite
challenging for many transhumanists in its insistence that there is no discrete, continuous ego that could be protected and perpetuated. Many of the immortalists, for instance, find that a threatening idea, but I think we will increasingly see the truth of the emptiness of the self as
we apply neurotechnologies and life extension.
> 4. If I may say so, it looks like we'll all be speaking Mandarin in 100 years. How do China's global (and extraterrestrial) ambitions impact the transhuman agenda?
One of my nightmares is an authoritarian China using coercion to achieve the full benefits of enhancement technologies for their population, and using neurotechnologies to remold their citizens into compliant workers and soldiers. The answer of course is not for the West to ban these technologies, but to make them as widely available to free people to use in freely determined ways, so that we get the even greater advantage to be had from a billion individual experimenters. China also highlights the importance of a global campaign of democratization and political globalization, to ensure human rights, democratic accountability, collective security and fair, sustainable development. Only a democratized world united around a democratic, accountable transnational authority can stand down the new forms of enhanced authoritarianism we are sure to see.
> 5. In the broadest sense of the word, will posthumans need libraries?
Yes, but electronic ones of course. Although some people will still want to read physical originals, I think books and journals will be transcended by richer, more complex and hyperlinked electronic media, engaging all the senses in ways just hinted at by virtual reality games
today.
> 6. There seems to be some really exciting academic work going on that's affiliated with or carried out by transhumanists -- looks like everything from ethnography and gerontology to nanotechnology and engineering. What are the fields that most excite you, and why?
One of the advantages of being a sociologist is that I can legitimately follow and be excited about everything. Like everybody else, my personal hopes for life extension and medical progress focus much of my attention there, and I'm trying to get more knowledgeable about cognition and neuro-physiology for my book Cyborg Buddha.
> 7. I listen to your Changesurfer Radio, and have enjoyed it for years. There's no denying that you're a science-fiction fan, is there? Who are you reading right now?
Just finishing the 1600 pages of Peter Hamilton's Pandora's Star and Judas Unchained, which projects a very plausible transhuman future and polity under serious pressure, implacable threat from hostile aliens. Precisely the kind of imagining we need for the challenges ahead. Next up is Ken MacLeod's Learning the World and Verner Vinge's Rainbow's End.
> 8. Okay. I want to ask you about military and police applications of the transhuman or posthuman vision. The notion of a world in which the world's major states have bundled the technology up and use it to control their populations and wage wars against each other is pretty scary. How can the transhumanist movement, and the technology associated with it, be made widely and democratically available without also making it available to criminals, autocrats, and terrorists?
We can't. We will have to weigh the risks and benefits of wide access to each technology. Making life extension tech widely available has low risks and wide benefits; yes bad guys will live a long time, but so what? Making neurotechnology widely available has more risks, so we will just have to punish those who use them for bad ends. Making nano-weapons widely available has low benefits and high risks, so I would restrict their possession to democratically accountable military and police. Etc.
> 9. Realistically, does the post-Singularity world look more like a Bill Joy or a Ray Kurzweil scenerio to you?
I have more of a cyberpunk future in mind - tech that breaks down and eats stuff as often as it works, government that is more transparent and accountable, but even more scary and destructive when it goes off the rails, people who are smarter, happier and healthier, but individual sociopaths who wreak havoc with unimaginable ease. I have faith we can
muddle through to a better place, but it will be wild and dangerous, and will require constant effort and attention.
> 10. What sort of positive collaborations can you see between transhumanists and librarians?
Librarians can buy lots of future-oriented literature and non-fiction for their libraries. Transhumanists can work to ensure that they don't get caught up in what Jaron Lanier calls "digital Maoism," proposing the complete replacement of expert knowledge by collective knowledge aggregation software, and thereby contribute to the denigration of the important role librarians and other knowledge experts play.
> 11. One more question: what sort of projects are you working on for the rest of the year?
Well these are more my agenda for the next couple of years, but:
1. Researching and writing Cyborg Buddha
2. Promoting a global anti-aging research program
3. Building the IEET and WTA
4. Raising my kids
5. Pursuing my quest to transcend sleep altogether
--
Thanks Dr. J!
Monday, June 12, 2006
hurricane initiative
Here at the dawn of the hurricane season of 2006, I offer a new program for the elimination of these threats to our values and our way of life, these storms.
I propose we pave the Gulf. Nothing but parking lot from Belize to the Bahamas, and back up to Port Orange, Florida. We need the parking and we don't need the storms. If a hurricane were yet to come in off the Atlantic into the Gulf Parking Lot, wouldn't we rather lose asphalt than American cities? Absolutely.
If this program is successful, America should build parking lot buffers extending 100 miles off its coasts from Seattle to L.A., and from Maine to Miami by 2012. Sit back and watch it work.
New jobs! Happy asphalt contractors! Fewer hurricanes! More parking! Vote for me!
I propose we pave the Gulf. Nothing but parking lot from Belize to the Bahamas, and back up to Port Orange, Florida. We need the parking and we don't need the storms. If a hurricane were yet to come in off the Atlantic into the Gulf Parking Lot, wouldn't we rather lose asphalt than American cities? Absolutely.
If this program is successful, America should build parking lot buffers extending 100 miles off its coasts from Seattle to L.A., and from Maine to Miami by 2012. Sit back and watch it work.
New jobs! Happy asphalt contractors! Fewer hurricanes! More parking! Vote for me!
the DNA of literature
From The Paris Review: Interviews:
"Welcome to the DNA of literature—over 50 years of literary wisdom rolled up in 300+ Writers at Work interviews, now available online—free. Founder and former Editor George Plimpton dreamed of a day when anyone—a struggling writer in Texas, an English teacher in Amsterdam, even a subscriber in Central Asia—could easily access this vast literary resource; with the establishment of this online archive that day has finally come. Now, for the first time, you can read, search, and download any or all of these in-depth interviews with poets, novelists, playwrights, essayists, critics, musicians, and more, whose work set the compass of twentieth-century writing, and continue to do so into the twenty-first."
--
Reading: Don Barthelme
"Welcome to the DNA of literature—over 50 years of literary wisdom rolled up in 300+ Writers at Work interviews, now available online—free. Founder and former Editor George Plimpton dreamed of a day when anyone—a struggling writer in Texas, an English teacher in Amsterdam, even a subscriber in Central Asia—could easily access this vast literary resource; with the establishment of this online archive that day has finally come. Now, for the first time, you can read, search, and download any or all of these in-depth interviews with poets, novelists, playwrights, essayists, critics, musicians, and more, whose work set the compass of twentieth-century writing, and continue to do so into the twenty-first."
--
Reading: Don Barthelme
fantastic in art and fiction
"The Fantastic in Art and Fiction" is a great image collection put together by the Cornell Institute for Digital Collections. These images are from the 'division of rare and manuscript collections' at the university library.
About the site: "...This image-bank provides a visual resource for the study of the Fantastic or of the supernatural in fiction and in art. While the site emerges from a comparative literature course on the topic at Skidmore College, it is also intended to open the door to consideration of some of the constant structures and patterns of fantastic literature, and the problems they raise. In this sense, the materials presented here may find a use among students in a variety of disciplines."
The categories: Angels and Demons, Danse Macabre, Weird Science, Bestiary, the Marvelous, the Grotesque, Posession and Insanity, Fantastic Space, Freaks Monsters & Prodigies.
--
Listening: Oumou Sangare
About the site: "...This image-bank provides a visual resource for the study of the Fantastic or of the supernatural in fiction and in art. While the site emerges from a comparative literature course on the topic at Skidmore College, it is also intended to open the door to consideration of some of the constant structures and patterns of fantastic literature, and the problems they raise. In this sense, the materials presented here may find a use among students in a variety of disciplines."
The categories: Angels and Demons, Danse Macabre, Weird Science, Bestiary, the Marvelous, the Grotesque, Posession and Insanity, Fantastic Space, Freaks Monsters & Prodigies.
--
Listening: Oumou Sangare
Sunday, June 11, 2006
black humor, if you've got the stomach for it
Via Warren Ellis and BBC News:
Watching: The Constant Gardener
Reading: Tarot For Dummies
Listening: Stephen Hoeller on the Tarot
'The suicides of three detainees at the US base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, amount to acts of war, the US military says.
The camp commander said... "They have no regard for life, either ours or their own. I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us."'
Watching: The Constant Gardener
Reading: Tarot For Dummies
Listening: Stephen Hoeller on the Tarot
Saturday, June 10, 2006
Here's a new concern of a different sort over MySpace and such sites... Our government may use them to mass harvest personal information. Via IrelandOnline:
"Online snooping set to move up a gear
10/06/2006 - 11:51:40
A US government spy agency is funding research into the “mass harvesting” of information that people post about themselves on websites like MySpace, it has been claimed.
The New Scientist said the National Security Agency, under fire recently over reports it tracked millions of American citizens’ phone calls, had backed a study on how advances in internet technology could make mining such “social networking” sites more useful.
The magazine said tens of millions of users of such web spaces could be vulnerable to online snooping..."
The New Scientist article.
--
And here's another from New Scientist-- an oldie -- protection of civil liberties for Britons, or another invasive attempt at a sort of 'total informatio awareness' program? -- 'DNA database "should include every citizen"':
"The inventor of DNA fingerprinting believes every citizen's genetic information should be stored on the UK national register. This would solve the problem of some individuals being listed even if they have been cleared of committing a crime.
Self censorship is in style again. Yee-ha.
--
"Online snooping set to move up a gear
10/06/2006 - 11:51:40
A US government spy agency is funding research into the “mass harvesting” of information that people post about themselves on websites like MySpace, it has been claimed.
The New Scientist said the National Security Agency, under fire recently over reports it tracked millions of American citizens’ phone calls, had backed a study on how advances in internet technology could make mining such “social networking” sites more useful.
The magazine said tens of millions of users of such web spaces could be vulnerable to online snooping..."
The New Scientist article.
--
And here's another from New Scientist-- an oldie -- protection of civil liberties for Britons, or another invasive attempt at a sort of 'total informatio awareness' program? -- 'DNA database "should include every citizen"':
"The inventor of DNA fingerprinting believes every citizen's genetic information should be stored on the UK national register. This would solve the problem of some individuals being listed even if they have been cleared of committing a crime.
"If we're all on the database, we're all in exactly the same boat - the issue of discrimination disappears," says Alec Jeffreys of the University of Leicester, UK...
Jeffreys says a complete national database should be controlled by an independent body and be limited to storing DNA information that only permits an identification - it should not carry DNA data that could be used to infer appearance, or susceptibility to disease."
--
The DNA in the UK issue is a tad different, but it's related; the sad thing is, I think a lot of us have had the attitude for some years that "the government" or corporations are already doing this sort of information gathering and using it to make more money or to seat themselves more securely in control. "They've" got the means. Why not do it? What oversight?Self censorship is in style again. Yee-ha.
--
Searching: For other songs by Remy Zero besides that one they used on Smallville.
Thursday, June 08, 2006
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
speculation wild on groovy viking teeth
Discovery News has an article about the recent discovery of modified teeth in young Viking men:
(pic outlinks to raa.se)
"Caroline Arcini of Sweden's National Heritage Board analyzed 557 skeletons of men, women and children from between 800 and 1050 A.D. They discovered that 22 of the men bore deep, horizontal grooves across the upper front teeth. "'The marks are traces of deliberate dental modifications ... they are so well-made that most likely they were filed by a person of great skill,' Arcini wrote in the current issue of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.
Ribbed for your, um, terror.
(pic outlinks to raa.se)
"Caroline Arcini of Sweden's National Heritage Board analyzed 557 skeletons of men, women and children from between 800 and 1050 A.D. They discovered that 22 of the men bore deep, horizontal grooves across the upper front teeth. "'The marks are traces of deliberate dental modifications ... they are so well-made that most likely they were filed by a person of great skill,' Arcini wrote in the current issue of the American Journal of Physical Anthropology.
"Traces of teeth mutilation have been found in all parts of the world except Europe, with the practice reaching its peak from 700 to 1400 A.D., during the height of the Viking Age."
The speculation on why they did this is still all over the place... from marks indicating "pain resistance" (and therefore ferocity!) to marks of slavery (a sort of branding), according to the article.
Here's a closer look at what you're dealing with:
Ribbed for your, um, terror.
red rain, alien strain?
From Popular Science:
"As bizarre as it may seem, the sample jars brimming with cloudy, reddish rainwater in Godfrey Louis’s laboratory in southern India may hold, well, aliens. In April, Louis, a solid-state physicist at Mahatma Gandhi University, published a paper in the prestigious peer-reviewed journal Astrophysics and Space Science in which he hypothesizes that the samples—water taken from the mysterious blood-colored showers that fell sporadically across Louis’s home state of Kerala in the summer of 2001—contain microbes from outer space."
"As bizarre as it may seem, the sample jars brimming with cloudy, reddish rainwater in Godfrey Louis’s laboratory in southern India may hold, well, aliens. In April, Louis, a solid-state physicist at Mahatma Gandhi University, published a paper in the prestigious peer-reviewed journal Astrophysics and Space Science in which he hypothesizes that the samples—water taken from the mysterious blood-colored showers that fell sporadically across Louis’s home state of Kerala in the summer of 2001—contain microbes from outer space."
voting like it matters
Why is H.R. 63 still in committee? Shouldn't we be making this one a priority, instead of the "gay marriage ban" amendment that's front and center in the Senate at the moment? (Excellent bit of media distraction, that has turned out to be -- nobody's very interested in why we've been paying Somalian warlords to keep out the Sharia law bunch, esepcially now that our warlords {and former enemies} have failed to hold Mogadishu??)
--
From Thomas:
H.R.63
Title: To treat the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November in the same manner as any legal public holiday for purposes of Federal employment, and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Rep Conyers, John, Jr. [MI-14] (introduced 1/4/2005) Cosponsors (109)
Related Bills: S.1130
Latest Major Action: 1/4/2005 Referred to House committee. Status: Referred to the House Committee on Government Reform.
--
H.R. 63 would mean, among other things, that when you're waiting in line to vote, you're not losing wages.
--
Where are our priorities?
An obvious answer is that the most powerful of our corporate-funded overlords in the legislative branch aren't really all that interested in helping more people get out to vote. But what does it matter if the voting process itself is broken?
--
From Thomas:
H.R.63
Title: To treat the Tuesday next after the first Monday in November in the same manner as any legal public holiday for purposes of Federal employment, and for other purposes.
Sponsor: Rep Conyers, John, Jr. [MI-14] (introduced 1/4/2005) Cosponsors (109)
Related Bills: S.1130
Latest Major Action: 1/4/2005 Referred to House committee. Status: Referred to the House Committee on Government Reform.
--
H.R. 63 would mean, among other things, that when you're waiting in line to vote, you're not losing wages.
--
Where are our priorities?
An obvious answer is that the most powerful of our corporate-funded overlords in the legislative branch aren't really all that interested in helping more people get out to vote. But what does it matter if the voting process itself is broken?
links: rfids, tech, etc.
Note to self -- quick roundup and reminders:
Pegasus Librarian -- and a short article with links to "catalogs that are doing cool things".
Sukhdev's World
Tame the Web, of course.
LibraryCrunch -- and a plan aware of 'technolust' isn't self-defeating.
HigherEd Blog Con, much is pertinent.
"Free Range Librarian" on tech trends at last ALA
Pegasus Librarian -- and a short article with links to "catalogs that are doing cool things".
Sukhdev's World
Tame the Web, of course.
LibraryCrunch -- and a plan aware of 'technolust' isn't self-defeating.
HigherEd Blog Con, much is pertinent.
"Free Range Librarian" on tech trends at last ALA
Monday, June 05, 2006
comics 7
Just got around to reading Bone Vol. 1 by Jeff Smith. I really liked it. The drawings are tight and fun and funny, and full of great little surprises. The characters have secrets which keep you interested and add depth (like, the connection between Granny Ben and the Dragon -- a connection to Rose by Smith and Charles Vess...). The story has a few gaps which leave me rubbing my chin -- not points of suspense, mind, but gaps like why are Phony Bone and Co. trying to go back to Boneville when he was exiled from town to begin with and they know that they can't go back? Maybe that's something that's answered in a later volume or something. But I liked it.
You need to read Promethea again. It's a manual for using your own imagination... tells you how you might use it better than you now do. It's a primer for magickal practice, too.
One more thing, re: Superman. Just watched all 4 of the old movies. Superman 3 and Superman 4 hurt to watch. I remembered loving them as a kid. What happened? How did we go from General Zod to Nuclear Man?
And speaking of Zod... I dearly love Ian McKellen, but I always felt that Terence Stamp would have been much better as Magneto (in the X-Men movies). Stamp would have brought that zealousy and righteousness to the role that we saw expressed in Jim Lee's Magneto. McKellen is very good, but makes a Magneto I never really believed in -- the betrayer, the petty villain. Stamp's would have been a Malcolm X figure. And while we're at it, can we just undo this last X-Men movie? Can somebody please just do it over, better? Like Bryan Singer or somebody? Thanks, if so.
You need to read Promethea again. It's a manual for using your own imagination... tells you how you might use it better than you now do. It's a primer for magickal practice, too.
One more thing, re: Superman. Just watched all 4 of the old movies. Superman 3 and Superman 4 hurt to watch. I remembered loving them as a kid. What happened? How did we go from General Zod to Nuclear Man?
And speaking of Zod... I dearly love Ian McKellen, but I always felt that Terence Stamp would have been much better as Magneto (in the X-Men movies). Stamp would have brought that zealousy and righteousness to the role that we saw expressed in Jim Lee's Magneto. McKellen is very good, but makes a Magneto I never really believed in -- the betrayer, the petty villain. Stamp's would have been a Malcolm X figure. And while we're at it, can we just undo this last X-Men movie? Can somebody please just do it over, better? Like Bryan Singer or somebody? Thanks, if so.
no insularity
This blog is molting. Note the slight shift of subtitle.
It's not meant for anyone so much as it's offered up for anyone who wants to read it.
It's still mostly about libraries, technology, media, magick, and comics. But you won't be surprised if it strays into the decidedly off-topic (because everything's interconnected, right?).
--
Listening: Drive By Truckers: Puttin' People on the Moon
Busy: abusing my illusions.
It's not meant for anyone so much as it's offered up for anyone who wants to read it.
It's still mostly about libraries, technology, media, magick, and comics. But you won't be surprised if it strays into the decidedly off-topic (because everything's interconnected, right?).
--
Listening: Drive By Truckers: Puttin' People on the Moon
Busy: abusing my illusions.
vikings 1
Learning about Viking Age archaeology now -- just getting into it. York (or Jorvik, as it was known) yeilded a very rich site at Coppergate during the 1970s -- and that site also turned up features and artifacts dating back to the Angle's occupation (famously, the helmet), and a Roman garrison town.
But now I'm excited about the 1960s finds in Newfoundland, because a Swedish scientist has recently found a dental connection between Vikings and New World natives -- apparent ritual carving of the teeth.
This implies more than mere encounter. Some intimacy, mutual understanding, and communication may have existed between the two cultures for such a ritual act to be appropriated.
Sources to follow:
Canadian Parks historical site info for L'anse aux Meadows:
http://www.pc.gc.ca/lhn-nhs/nl/meadows/index_e.asp
Vikings in America:
http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/vinland.html
UNESCO World Heritage site for L'anse aux Meadows:
http://whc.unesco.org/pg.cfm?cid=31&id_site=4
York's Viking Age from the York Archaeological Trust:
http://www.jorvik-viking-centre.co.uk/trialsplash2.htm
Viking Age Timeline:
http://faculty.washington.edu/akn/051002_files/frame.htm
Virtual Tour of Ribblehead Farm in Yorkshire from BBC (.wrl):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/vikings/launch_vr_viking_farm.shtml
But now I'm excited about the 1960s finds in Newfoundland, because a Swedish scientist has recently found a dental connection between Vikings and New World natives -- apparent ritual carving of the teeth.
This implies more than mere encounter. Some intimacy, mutual understanding, and communication may have existed between the two cultures for such a ritual act to be appropriated.
Sources to follow:
Canadian Parks historical site info for L'anse aux Meadows:
http://www.pc.gc.ca/lhn-nhs/nl/meadows/index_e.asp
Vikings in America:
http://www.pitt.edu/~dash/vinland.html
UNESCO World Heritage site for L'anse aux Meadows:
http://whc.unesco.org/pg.cfm?cid=31&id_site=4
York's Viking Age from the York Archaeological Trust:
http://www.jorvik-viking-centre.co.uk/trialsplash2.htm
Viking Age Timeline:
http://faculty.washington.edu/akn/051002_files/frame.htm
Virtual Tour of Ribblehead Farm in Yorkshire from BBC (.wrl):
http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ancient/vikings/launch_vr_viking_farm.shtml
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