May 2003 Archives

Echo

Nevermind having a song stuck in my head.

Since having my iPod and thus having my music with me everywhere I go and all the time... added to that these Shure E2c headphones which so nicely and comfortably fit into my ear canal, blocking out the outside world, absorbing me deeply into the voluptuousness of a fully musical world, I've developped a sort of "echo" in my head...

Nevermind having a song stuck in one's head, which one sings repeatedly outloud or under one's breath. I am speaking of an echo. I am talking about hearing music I'd been listening to all day, faintly in the background of my mind as I tend to other things, long after unplugging and turning off the music.

Sounds nice? It is sort of, at first. However the problem is that lately I've been listening to a fair amount of lyrics-based stuff... rap, hip-hop, pop, rock and roll, whatever... all kinds of stuff, but lyrics based. The problem this creates is that the MOMENT language is involved it sparks up the language processor in the brain, stealing significantly from my concentration and upping it's position in my consciousness index.

(Think Glenn Gould's " The idea of north")

Try falling asleep with 50 cent whispering "yo shorty, it's you burfday" in your head...

(Try turning off language processing next time you are watching television alone. Very hard. Next, try turning it up when you are in a crowded room where many people are talking, not to you.)




Precisely my cunundrum

Wired 11.06: Mind Share

Your mind becomes a part of the space as well. Your own personal site becomes an extension of your memory, as in Vannevar Bush's vision of the Memex, but your memories also become part of the Web's collective intelligence.

I am finding it harder and harder to differentiate my brain from the extended one (the web). So much of my memory now is linked to (or points to) "places" on the web, that when I am not "online" I feel diminished in many ways.

I don't know where in "the real world" that restaurant you told me about is... but I sure know where I can find it online in under 15 seconds...

"Oh I have an interesting tidbit of information pertaining to what you just said... oh wait... what was it again... I found it through that site the other day.. the URL is http://... damn... "

Augmented memory. Cyborg. Hello.




Happy to be there...

WWW2003 Community Coverage

I love this phenomenon. Though of course I would LOVE to actually be there, the fact that attendees at these things live blog and that the IRC sessions are logged (chumped?) and posted to the web... well... is great! Not just for me and you but for the future...

Historical documentation... contributed to by multiple sources... master document.




Interpretation

and over-interpretation:
The Matrix Reloaded: The Corporate Mofo Guide

Nice job. I for one have absolutely zero faith in any reality as it is so it's all a good chuckle.




Power suit

Wired News: Shocking New Jacket Hits Street

Sociological implications aside, what interests me here is the nod to the animal kingdom...

To prevent accidental discharges, the wearer must arm the jacket before it can deliver a shock. A lock on the sleeve must first be opened with a key, and then the charge is built up by holding down a button inside one of the sleeves.

The idea is to charge it only in threatening situations or when the wearer feels vulnerable, Whiton said. A woman might arm it when she's walking to her car at night, for instance.

When charged, the jacket crackles audibly. A pair of slits in the outer lining shows the electric arcs that course across the entire middle layer. It's an impressive display of the jacket's power.

Sweet! Like electric eels!

Seriously though, imagine. Like a scene out of X-Men, no? Crackle crackle crackle...

Adam Whiton, one of the jacket's inventors, said the "really evil crackling sound" makes him flinch involuntarily: The shocks he received testing the jacket conditioned him to associate the sound with pain.

Shudder.




Frame by frame it

Gary's Mac OS X Programs

I will need this soon.
(Thank you Stevey!)




Francofolies 2003

À voir, absolument:
Jean Leloup, Katerine et surtout, SURTOUT Stéphane Eicher.




Talking to an accountant tonight

he says to me:

"pigs get fat; hogs get slaughtered."




I don't wanna grow up

Tom Waits

When I'm lyin' in my bed at night
I don't wanna grow up
nothin' ever seems to turn out right
I don't wanna grow up
how do you move in a world of fog
that's always changing things
makes me wish that I could be a dog
when I see the price that you pay
I don't wanna gow up
I don't ever wanna be that way
I don't wanna grow up




ps -ax

For years I've been playing with the idea that man created the computer in his own image. Memory, I/O, software, hardware, etc. Most of my friends have heard about the "scripts" I've "written" and "run as background processes" in my mind to, for example, make sure I never lose my keys or leave the house without my wallet. We all program our brains, and sometimes have them programmed for us. I could go on, but tonight I'm interested in exploring the subconscious, and to do that I'll look at the CLI, or Shell, or Terminal, or whatever your operating system calls it. For the purposes of this article I'll call it the terminal, because I'm a Mac OS X kind of guy.

Think of the Terminal as the window into the subconscious of your computer. Now, let's turn that around and see if we have a Terminal of our own; a window into our own subconscious. Keep in mind that the Terminal not only allows us to peer in, but also to effectuate commands... and run scripts...




Not mine...

... but someone else's "Thought for the day".

I had bookmarked this a ways back. It is the web journal of Momus, who apparently has recently written about "photoblogging".

How perfect.