I didn't want this to be the first post in a while but what the heck... I've been thinking a lot about the nature of time again recently. Especially the future. Gibson's quote, "The future is already here - it...
Culture Category Archive
Revisiting an old curse
A supposed chinese curse goes "may you live in interesting times." First of all, we need to update this to "may you live in an interesting time and place," as surely there are always "interesting" things going on somewhere....
intense
I'm at a loss for words to describe this. Johnny Depp on promo tour in Japan is audience to ... well... this. Watch for the girls playing the synths. Incredible. Part 1 and Part 2 (Youtube disabled embedding) via Ado....
There's something in the air
Digitalism - Pogo It's been quite of a while since i could experience your brightness Now you've got a brighter smile and i think i'm going to like it Talking 'bout the better things, you know how to maximize...
Claire de lune
Clair de lune from musanim on Vimeo Gorgeous. More pieces here. From the Music Animation Machine, which isn't a machine at all. ;) This fits perfectly with a thought I had last week about time: how the past is...
We want your soul
We want your soul video by Adam Freeland Show us Your Habits, Your Facts, Your Fears Give us your address, your shoe size, your years your digits, your plans, your number, your eyes your skedule, your desktop, your details, your...
Kyoto Jazz Massive
Shuya Okino of Kyoto Jazz Massive is playing Montreal tomorrow night: Shuya Okino of Kyoto Jazz Massive fame as he embarks on a North American tour supporting his latest United Legends EP. This stop in montreal is going down at...
Pecha Kucha Night Montréal
James and I are putting on Pecha Kucha Night Montreal at the S.A.T. on June 14th. Doors open at 7:30 and attendance is free....
"It's all about taste"
New friend Patrick went on a fantastic tear about how fascinating Karl Lagerfeld is after I showed him The Sartorialist and we scrolled over his picture. The above video was a 2 minute promotional made to announce Lagerfeld's line...
Just a band
Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip 'Thou Shalt Always Kill' "thou shalt give equal worth to tragedies that occur in non-english speaking countries as to those that occur in english speaking countries." (1:54 in)...
fluokids
fluokids, kinda interesting DJ crew in france, seems to be made up of some funloving kids. However, what I find the most interesting, is their awesome logo: Made by Arthur Röing, a swedish teenager. He says: Submission for graphic design...
Sartorialist
Found The Sartorialist a few months back (via Mike I think?) and am really *really* enjoying his candid snaps of pure style. As the two above are an example of. Let your environment inspire you. Jump into the flow....
No way
Tomorrow at 3pm I am meeting someone who was instrumental in introducing the Shibuya Kei style of music to North America in the 1990's. If it hadn't been for this, I would never have heard of Pizzicato 5 and my...
L'habit ne fait pas le moine
It's not the clothes, it's how you wear them. Not [WHAT]: [HOW][WHO][WHEN][WHERE] Style is: adapting to the context. Fashion is: making that adaptation. As every river has a source and ends in an estuary, every quality individual manifestation of style...
Esthetic urban decay by design
The view above is common in Tokyo: rough, old and weathered giant stone block walls. Images of ninja scrambling along them... er I digress. Walking back to Shibuya from Harajuku a few weeks back, I noticed this wall: Obviously,...
Surreal
New friend Verena is in Beijing this week and she posted this picture she took while driving my Tiananmen Square. I find the image of Mao mesmerizing. Not becase it's Mao (it means nothing to me for I have...
Bangla
If you ever need the Bangla keyboard mappings and some fonts for Mac OS X, Apple conveniently links to them. Be prepared though... It's like being there!!! ;) Oops, you'll need some fonts with that. Thank you come again. Why...
What's that movie?!
Help me out here... Mid 80's, I think the main actor was a WWF wrestler (first guess was Brutus "The Barber" Beefcake, but IMDB doesn't list any movies for him). Something about aliens already here, controlling society on earth via...
ç”°ä¸ - quarter half - 1/4 1/2 - ricefield center
When I saw this, I thought "quarter half". In japanese, it reads ta-naka. It is a family name. (I actually have a friend who's family name is Tanaka.) The kanji characters mean: ç”° -> rice field ä¸ -> center, middle,...
Otaku?
Amazon taps into otaku culture. Or what's left of it anyways. from Metropolis (no permanent URI--"permalink". get a clue people!) Now that otaku are the new trendsetters, you’ll be sure to find what’s hot in Japanese subculture wherever they congregate....
Crunkin' fo' Jaysus
Someone at AP didn't do their research. Consider: Atlanta rappers take crunk to the pulpit "We represent harder than any other person," he said. "We are born-again, sanctified, delivered in Jesus' name. Some people have a problem with the way...
A consciousness
(get past the melodrama and the fact that it's an anime / "oh it's cheesy scifi" ;) Just as there are many parts needed to make a human a human there's a remarkable number of things needed to make an...
Vicious Interface
the above is a cheat sheet for the vi terminal-based text editor. it is evil in it's powerful complexity. amongst geek ideology wars, vi is often pitted again emacs. the emacs camp backronyms vi to mean "vicious interface" my...
When the money comes knocking, egotism answers.
Flickr patents "Interestingness". Media objects, such as images or soundtracks, may be ranked according to a new class of metrics known as "interestingness." These rankings may be based at least in part on the quantity of user-entered metadata concerning the...
The party's over...
Absolutely most see. "Robert Newman gets to grips with the wars and politics of the last hundred years - but rather than adhering to the history we were fed at ... all » school, the places oil centre stage as...
Everything part II
continuation of previous post They say there is opportunity in chaos. The chaos they speak of exists generally outside, and on the fringes of, "The System". Humanity, for better or worse, seeks always to order, structure, the chaos and...
Everything
(rambling alert!!!) Everything is a node. And every node can be, at once, part of many contexts, and can also, just by being, create many contexts. Every node has many properties. And contexts can add and modify properties of nodes....
Awww kick me in the lifestyle why dontcha
Crystal Method and LCD Soundsystem both produced 45 minute-ish tracks for Nike+; engineered specifically for jogging workouts, designed specifically for dumbasses like me. Ouan. Update Teh LCD Soundsystem track *sucks*. Oh and fuckyouverymuch, Apple "Fairplay". Update 2 Ok, ok,...
Well stated
Lucas Gonze puts into words what most iPod/iTunes users haven't quite become aware of yet: why you need more music from Wired -- The Day the Music Died: I thought at first I had misheard him. "... library of 90,000...
Create a culture of design
This is exactly what I hope to set up around me, for my eventual team, modulo all the emphasis on games/gaming: pasta and vinegar � Creating a culture of design research 1. Create a space that encourages design research: “the...
MIT Center for Collective Intelligence
Our basic research question is: How can people and computers be connected so that—collectively—they act more intelligently than any individuals, groups, or computers have ever done before? Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated....
Aligmatically challenged
I just cursed someone AND invented a word all at once! Aligmatically challenged: someone who is incapable of lining stuff up. Makes me crazy. It's gotta flow dammit! I don't care how "rough outline" or "general idea" it is! hehehehe...
Breaking out of the Document
An email from Julian sent me into a whirl. If I wanted to publish scrapbook-like, and I mean really willy-nilly ad-hoc layouts... is it doable in web-standards today? I can build a CMS that takes care of navigation, blog-style, across...
Dance with me
This makes me love humanity. (New album from Nouvelle Vague. Yay! Music video is a scene from Goodard movie "Bande à part") Merci Karl!...
Citizendium
Very interesting: The Citizendium, a "citizens' compendium of everything," will be an experimental new wiki project that combines public participation with gentle expert guidance. It will begin life as a "progressive fork" of Wikipedia. But we expect it to take...
Speaking of shopping
This XMas video by Jer does a nice job of subtly and subconsciously communicating just how surreal consumer culture can be. Remember, only X shopping days till Christmas!...
Buy movies...
Ok here we go. Amazon just unveiled "Amazon Unbox", their movie and TV show purchasing & download store. Apple is rumored (damn near confirmed) to release their movie download service next week as well, however with fewer studios signed up...
Bingo
Ok Go do their crazy treadmill routine live on the MTV Video Music Awards. The first comment puts it... the way you could only expect i tto be put on the Internet... I believe that the narrowminded and obnoxious message...
"George Galloway Savages SKY NEWS"
(SKY is apparently the british equivalent of Fox News, both Rupert Murdoch properties. Rupert also owns MySpace now. Beware, the brainwash machine expanded by a couple million more brains... very narrow brains mind you... ;) Erasure of memory, loss...
So
Mike Pinkerton, developer of Camino, who now works for Google and doesn't seem so enthused about it all, says: So did you ever notice how most people nowadays start new thoughts or interrupt discussions with "so"? I wonder how that...
To save Bethune
EastSouthWestNorth: Extraordinary Chinese Sayings, 1840-1999 - Part 1: When the Chinese Communist leaders found out that Dr. Bethune was ill, they ordered a full-scale effort to save him. Zhou Enlai issued a secret order to the party underground in...
Location Portals
Michael finally went and got himself a "this is not personal!" weblog where he will talk about something that is central to everything he hopes and dreams about (in a non personal way! hehe). If you're interested in location based,...
Noise in the background of my head
Here is a "signature of the music I listen to", analysis of my iTunes playlist, based on 60 most listened tracks. Take a peek. Generated by the sparse yet full operational "iTunes Signature Maker" by Jason Freeman. Nicely done. Warning:...
Wa-hunh?
The big electronics chain in Canada is British Columbia based "FutureShop", now a division of (american electronics chain) "Best Buy". The FutureShop website has a promo section up, announcing the arrival of the new Nintendo "Wii" system. Clicking on "order...
A Million Ways to surf the viral wave
Wow. Just a bit over a year ago I pointed to this homemade musicvideo by this band, "Ok go!", wherein they perform a quite complex choreographed dance routine in one take in a backyard. It went sort of viral at...
Other long tails I'd like to see
I would love to see stats on requested engravings on Apple iPods. Surely there are all kinds of "customizations" that are requested over and over and over... I'd also like to see how unique a request of "Defective by design"...
Random 90's memory
As the Wikipedia entry says, Tom Cochran's song "Life is a Highway" was huuuuge back in '91. It's a good song, really. I'm glad for Mr. Cochrane as it's getting success again, even though the "country music boy band Rascal...
Certifiable
Quick! Someone make a t-shirt for these people. It should say: "Non-conformity is the new conformity" or "zealotry is sexy again!" ("I'm with stupid"'s already been done.) Pride is such a terribly dangerous thing. And too often people confuse pride...
Musical Nokia
I'm poking around Nokia trying to decide between an N70 or N80, but that's not the point. I called up the Nokia main portal page, then moved my attention over to something else for a moment, and in so doing...
10 years on
I just came across this interview with Joi done in 1995. Reading it I am struck by a few things: - 10 years ago Joi was roughly my age. - He saw very very clearly what was going on, on...
Layered
Some reporterOriginally uploaded by Mezito.I see at least 4 layers of reality in this photo. How about you?(There are many more of course, but not directly portrayed, or even portrayable, at least not easily/cheaply, yet...)...
Don't do evil
Oops, seems in their fervor, the community has forgotten to define *what is evil*. Last year Google hired the bipartisan lobbying firm Podesta Mattoon, whose lobbyists include Daniel Mattoon, a Republican and longtime friend of House Speaker Dennis Hastert, and...
Summing it up
My post on "it's not about you" the other day sparked a good thread of debate which culminated in Hugh staking some key points, and Karl responding very clearly and directly, and in my opinion, right on the money, so...
It's not about you
At least not the way you may be led to believe it is. With apologies to Stewart and Caterina, the whole Flickr team and all the folks involved in this "Web 2.0" stuff, who, for the most part, are truly...
Brandalism
from the excellent excellent Banksy "Wall and Piece" book: People abuse you everyday. They butt into your life, take a cheap shot at you and then disappear. They leer at you from tall buildings and make you feel small. They...
David Suzuki
I've been meaning to write about David Suzuki for a long time, and haven't yet mainly because I have not done what I told myself I'd do first: actually get acquainted with "his stuff", knowing it would affect my life...
Orwell's "Notes on nationalism"
Don't have the time to expound on this seminal text more profoundly at the moment but wanted to point it out. First a salient quote: Indifference to objective truth is encouraged by the sealing-off of one part of the world...
Classic
I know you know how this feels. (thx Stevey. Everyone, go see Stevey, he blogs neat stuff! Like robot sharks with frikkin' lazers! And that guy who makes ski area maps!)...
Vhat ze heck ist zis?
I'm not sure what to make of this series of new Volkswagen GTI commercials: "de-pimping your auto." Part of me is laughing pretty hard, but another is cringing, especially at the racial/cultural stereotyping: ugly rigid "weirdo eccentric" german guy pulling...
"America's Online Censors"
Rebecca does an absolutely great job of summing up many of the issues and thoughts and results of the U.S. Congressional hearings held last week concerning U.S. technology companies and their roles in Internet censorship regimes around the world. We...
On the success of weblogs et al
The success of all these things such as weblogs, websyndication, etc, is directly attributable, I think, to one basic fact: weblogs are basic, rudimentary Content Management Systems. At risk of over-simplifying, I say that human intellect, human intelligence itself, in...
歲歲平安 Suìsuì píngãn
(Everlasting peace year after year) 恭喜发财 Kung hei fat choy to my chinese friends celebrating the new year; may it not be a dog. :) Sadly ironic, my sister's puppy somehow managed to asphyxiate itself with a plastic bag yesterday...
Accepting
"Have the courage to change what you cannot accept, the strength to accept what you cannot change, and the wisdom to know one from the other." I've long admired this proverb but it never quite sat well with me. I...
Obey
On a whim I poked around Flickr's obey, obeygiant and andrethegiant tag aggregators. Why I would do such a thing might be explained here. This evening it started with finding a Space Invader in the Flickr japan tag aggregator and...
"after building up a fan base on the internet"
Sheffield rock band the Arctic Monkeys have topped the UK singles charts with their debut track, after building up a fan base on the internet. "I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor" trumped pop trio the Sugababes after...
Expression Under Repression
Rebecca and Ethan and a few other of the Global Voices Online team were WSIS in Tunisia this week and today gave a workshop presentation on "Expression Under Repression", despite technically having been canceled "by the authorities". Very exciting, awesome...
urban street w[e]ar
urban street w[e]ar: "Here's what they'll soon be wearing in the banlieues, les territoires abandonnés, of urban France. According to the manufacturers, the Sweat Anticon garment is "simple et élégant comme un sweat à capuche... Que vous soyez graffeur, moche,...
Human hands
In the process of clearing up a misunderstanding, Ethan points to a great article by one Justin Mason about cellphone repair stalls in the streets of India. Amongst other things, it speaks to how most people in a consumerist culture...
LibriVox
Friend Hugh started up a neat "sorta Project Gutenberg for audio books" called LibriVox. The project has gotten some good traction and attention - Hugh was invited to the recent Open Library launch shindig by Brewster Kahle - and he's...
BBC catalogue begins development
Biddulph and Hammersley are on the case. Screenshot 1 (Searching for "John Peel") and screenshot 2 ("John Peel's contributer page") I think I would have dropped everything to play on this project too. Sigh. ;) My favorite line in Biddulph's...
Googoomania
Some people... Walid Elias Kai, who has a doctorate in search engine marketing, and his wife Carol of Kalmar, Sweden, have named their son Oliver Google Kai...
1955, Glenn Gould remixes live, on piano
I came across an outtake track of Glenn Gould's historic 1955 Goldberg Variations recording session. On it you hear various studio chatter and joke cracking and mumbling and false starts and cursing. Near the end of the track, Gould springs...
My other new blahg!
Yahoo! SiteExplorer Michal: there's no escape. bopuc: .htaccess [1] robots.txt [2] Michal: sudo apachectl stop [3] bopuc: hehehe ACL [4] i don't want to stop talking, I want Them to stop listening ;) Michal: ha, yeah The popular misconception is...
Diabolical [PSP] marketing
Sony PSP advertising campaign in Malaysia. Clear bubble-wrap over the PSP's controlpad button icons (X, O, triangle, square). Diabolical for the following reasons:As everyone else is saying, who's never had fun popping bubble wrap? It is addictive. A marketers wetdream.Tactile...
Lord of War
Ok, first of all, it IS a Hollywood movie, which means it is replete and chock full of everything a Hollywood movie needs: clichés, one liners, understated deadpan melodrama; the works. Second, Nicholas Cage gives a great rendition of...
Potter spam
It seems only fitting that along with drugs, gambling and porn, I am seeing lots and lots of Harry Potter hawking email and weblog comment/trackback spam. More detritus of today's society and culture... :p...
What we need is more McLuhan
I've been meaning to send some link love (daaah, cannot believe I used that phrase) to Mark Federman's new weblog. Mark's the Chief Strategist at the McLuhan Center at the University of Toronto. He used to write at their official...
Google swallows the internet whole, and you with it
First, it was about "indexing" all of the web. Then, it bought a small chunk of that web (Blogger). Then Google said "hey, there's more than the web out there!" and Google Mail was pushed out. Quickly followed by Google...
That was quick!
"Apple supports video podcasting" Seems they "turned it on" without telling anyone. Told. you. so. :D...
Trust
"Lead Camino developer Mike Pinkerton has announced that he has accepted a position at Google." Public (and there are more such announcements coming) Micah Dubinko -> YahooXForms Specification Editor TV Raman IBM -> GoogleParticipant of many W3C working groups...
Modernity | Hold -> Musak -> Static
As mentioned, I spent a "good" amount of time on the phone with various customer support lines over the last 2-3 weeks. This means alot of time on hold. In the evolution of phone-based services, "hold" was of course an...
Documenting human rights abuses
(I can't find the info or name of this conference... Michael what was the name again?) Earlier this week, I ran over to Concordia University to listen to some presentations grouped under the title (gaaaaahhh something about genocide and media/documenttion)....
Safe travels gaucho
So, Steven's probably sitting on the tarmac at Pierre Elliott Trudeau Airport right now, beginning a 2 month trip to Cuba and, I suspect, to the core of himself. No, he's not going to go sit on the beach. He's...
Break it down, build it up
(just a quick note.) Existant data-object storage and retrieval systems: - Hard hierarchialization ("taxonomies", "categories with parent/child relationships") - Analytico-synthetic ("Faceted categorization", "Semantic Web") - Unstructured labelization ("Tags", "Labels") - Statistical extrapolation ("Keywords") - Unstructured data ("Full text search") [Disclaimer:...
You know they're on crack when...
I just got a "letter" from American Express offering me a $20,000 loan. Obviously, it's not because I'm special or anything; it's what they do. However that's not what they'd have you believe of course: As one of our most...
Yeehaw, mon
Countryman is Willie Nelson's first reggae album. I'm crying here. Along with baby jesus....
some pig
OMG... well.. videocasting is here and the predictable severely rapid decline of "culture" * may begin. ----------------------------------------------------- You should check out the Internet TV channel "some pig". If you don't have DTV, you can get it here: http://www.participatoryculture.org/download.php And then subscribe...
KhmerOS
Awesome We envision a country where Cambodians can learn and use computers in their own language, a country that does not have to change to a new language in order to use computers! Bravo. They're translating and localizing stuff like...
Judge a book by it's thumbprint
A few months ago I enabled a feature on Joi Ito's weblog which I called his "blog thumbprint". What it is, is a weighted list of the most frequently used words in the entirety of Joi's blog, with the text...
Flickr & Creative Commons
Help push the more widespread awareness of the use of Creative Commons licenses on Flickr. You can copy and paste the code below into your Flickr Profile's "Describe Yoruself" field: ---------------------------------------------------------------- Please consider changing your Flickr photo license option...
Touché
Damn... I'm on the verge of popping a reblog feed of Andrew's blog in my sidebar...The Karl Rove situation is a litmus test for just how far the Bush administration is willing to go to cling to power and lie...
Sophisticated krishnas
The Hare Krishnas from down the street just went by. They seem to have hired a new arranger cause instead of just chanting, they had an accordion and some real bongos and were doing the traditional "hare hare krishna krishna"...
Pointing thataway
I just want to point out that Joi's recent entry on the whole Live 8 thing has the best comment stream I've seen over there in a long time. (Sorry Joi... it's not you, it's the nutjobs and relentless pessimists...
You don't need $ to make a hot video as long as you have the right moves
A few reasons why this is one hell of a music video:Decent tune. It's in the current not-totally-mainstreamed-to-death-yet bracket. Barely.DIY. Cheap home camera, on a tripod or picnic table. Looks like iMovie for post prod, what post prod there was...Real....
Public WiFi snoops
You can always tell the person running the network sniffer at public WiFi hotspots; the maniacal grin as he scans the room observing all the surfers one by one wondering "who was looking at *this*?"... "I read your email"......
Money, death and the French
The word "mortgage", which is french, translates directly to "death bet": when the bank gives someone a mortgage, they are essentially gambling on the hopes that the poor sod will pay them back before he dies. In french however, a...
Now they've done it
del.icio.us adds filetype tags automatically to media files. I could go into boring things like implicit metadata, the coupling of a flat tag pool with a flat:hierarchical:organization... but really, there are more fun things that come out of this. Like,...
UNESCO slaps U.S. & WTO's wrist, fighting to preserve cultural exception
This is a few days old, but I didn't see it anywhere else. (Found in Sylvain's del.icio.us stream) French article and it's Google MangleTranslation. I'll try to un-mangle the more salient parts: After two weeks of negotiations, involving 500 experts...
I want more Cornelius in my day
Suddenly realized I hadn't heard any new music from Cornelius in a while, so I popped over to his site. Poking around, I found this little film he did the music for. Sugoi. So... New album? Joi, can you ask?...
Shall wonders never cease?
Two words, people: transparent duct tape. Ok, ok, that's three words......
Torrential ninjas
Two days ago, I had this ninja movie, Red Shadow, coming in on BitTorrent at, like, 450k/s ... it was sooooo sweet... I was really pumped. Then at 64% the only seeder disconnected. I thought I was totally gonna flip...
Just don't call it Brussel sprouts!
"Economic democracy" is a powerful concept in all kinds of ways both in its ambiguity as well as its linkages. There's a lot that goes with it practically and theoretically--and it should become a very familiar concept to the broader...
Atmospheric stabilization in folksonomic tag clouds
Visual display of how choice of tags on a URL stabilizes over time on Del.icio.us. I blame "suggested tags" ;)...
Himiko water-bus
Himiko water-bus, originally uploaded by chipple. I want to live in a plce where anime artists are commissioned to design public transport vehicles... Not that I am a big anime fan or anything, it's just... I mean damn, look...
Toronto subway station tile pattern buttons
... a collection of 1-inch buttons featuring replicas of the tile art and visual landmarks of Toronto's subway stations. Buttons are sold in packages of their respective subway line, or you can purchase a package of five stations of...
Elsewhere everywhere
David Bernal, a.k.a. "Elsewhere". The newest iPod commercial features this guy who's style is totally unmistakable. He's the second dancer, when the background turns green, also the very last, and 3 times during. You may recognize the fluid, biokinetic...
Playing Flickr Peepshow
Playing Flickr For one week in May, the diners in Restaurant 11 will be confronted with the photos the users of Playing FLICKR select. By sending a keyword through SMS, users can request all photos on the flickr.com database that...
Yes, Minister
It always seemed rather strange to even myself that I thoroughly enjoyed watching this British political satire situation comedy. The writing was simply superb, the characters equally profoundly witty, when not nit-witted, and the clever pace helped via laughter, one's...
"Meet the world" flags
We started to research relevant, global, and current facts and, thus, came up with the idea to put new meanings to the colours of the flags. We used real data taken from the websites of Amnesty International and the...
Semantic File System and the U.S. Patent office
This is very very very bad. A data model represents semantic information associated with objects stored in a file system. The data model includes a first object identifier, a second object identifier and a relation identifier. The first object identifier...
The keitais are coming!
Slowly over the past year I've noticed a subtle transition in the mobile phone handsets that have been available here in my home market. But today it really struck me as apparent: the keitais are coming. Not in features or...
Nobody Knows - Dare Mo Shiranai
Precariously perched, Hope dies. The world is so cold, and chance rarely appears. Stunning and devastating. I cannot say more....
what daaa?
Jean Snow reports on something funny, yet inevitable, happening in one of his english classrooms: What's a Cassette? there was one kid (about 7 or 8 years old) who took the cassette box and put it up to his ear....
Black tambourine
Two years ago Apple released a little snippet of code on its developer site called "Ascii Movie Player Sample". Basically you run it in the Terminal, feed it a Quicktime .mov and it plays it in ascii. Neat. I heard...
Employee of the month
Click opera - Employee of the month: "People are strange when you're a stranger," sang Jim Morrison. They're even stranger when you're scrolling around a 1051x1557 pixel employee photograph on a corporate website. Brilliantly, Momus deconstructs what otherwise would just...
Let's expand on folksonomies
First of all, purely for background and some interesting ideas, the Wikipedia definition of "taxonomy". Taxonomy (from Greek ταξινομία (taxinomia) from the words taxis = order and nomos = law) may refer to either a hierarchical classification of things, or...
Politically correct in Quebec
(or "baladi-balado") Ok some background. I live in Quebec, a predominantly francophone ("french speaking") province ("state") of Canada. The francophones here are ridiculously anxious about protecting "their culture" (while they love nothing more than buying american products and seeing their...
Sumthin'Cast
Why not... Here's a 30 minute mix of some stuff in my playlists. Like Eating Glass - Bloc Party - Silent Alarm Peach, Plum, Pear - Joanna Newsom - Walnut Whales Destroy Rock 'N' Roll - Mylo - Destroy Rock...
Now what?
So AOL has updated it's Terms Of Use for AIM: Although you or the owner of the Content retain ownership of all right, title and interest in Content that you post to any AIM Product, AOL owns all right, title...
The King of Yet-Also
Momus gives us this fantastic essay about Michael Jackson: Nota: This is not about your or my or anyone's morals. One of the reasons the Michael Jackson trial is so unfortunate is that the world of Either-Or will pass judgment...
VoIP FUD advertising
Ed Bilodeau found this new ad campaign by Bell Canada: Bell has launched an ad campaign to make people believe that VoIP telephone services over cable are not reliable. "It's a food-chain ecosystem," says I, "introduce a new species and...
Music makers WANT to share
Creative Commons search index breakdown: It appears that people licensing audio have chosen to offer more liberal terms than average while those licensing still and moving images have chosen less liberal terms than average. And THAT, my friends, is VERY...
Tetsujin 28 weblog
So this is all in japanese but here's what seems to be going on: there's this movie, "Tetsujin28", coming out that looks like a modern remake of some japanese giant robot series or whatever. And here is the movie's... blog....
The Old Man and the Sea
On monday night I went and watched "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou". I went alone. It took until last night for me to fully absorb it and realize that I really liked it. A straight-faced dead-pan comedy adaption of...
Viennese New Year
Radetzky-Marsch, Op.228 Johann Strauss, Sr. (mp3 ~4.6meg) This is the kind of stuff I imagine was being blared in the house I grew up in during my parents' yearly New Year's Eve parties, though I can't remember. The first few...
Canadian public geo-data copyrighted and sold by the government
Some cool folks, working on a cool project, are looking for some reliable geo-data for Canada. Place names and GPS coordinates, mostly. So I turn to Natural Resources Canada of course, the governmental body that has this stuff. The first...
Capsule mansion
Boing boing just linked to a gallery of pics of the Nakagin Capsule Tower - Ginza, Tokyo - which was mentioned in that book I rambled on about a few weeks back (in a post titled "Boids"). I much...
Communication in Evolution: Social and Technological Transformation
An Interview with Derrick de Kerckhove Director, McLuhan Program   conducted by Álvaro Bermejo AB: In spite of its totalising ambitions, can the Net develop a new Humanism, a new Enlightenment? DdeK: Maybe, but Humanism and Enlightenment may not be...
Quick thought on copyright
Posted this comment chez Joi: Copyright is a product of egotism and greed. It is of the utmost arrogance to think that we own anything, let alone something so abstract and fleeting as "an idea". Copyright was created because the...
Gustav
Discovered amongst the tracks of the recently mentioned Blogothèque compilations (go go go grab it!!! Junkie Brewster's rendition of "Like a prayer" alone is worth the download!) is a gem called "We shall overcome". Here is the video version. Gustav,...
Boids
Do Android Crows Fly Over the Skies of an Electronic Tokyo? The Interactive Urban Landscape of Japan (Architecture Landscape Urbanism) 2001 - Akira Suzuki Picked this little gem up at the CCA bookstore the day I attended the Devices...
Apache Redux
So, I've just found out that the fellow in that "worst video ever" was one "Tommy Seebach". Apparently Tommy was briefly a huge star in his homeland of Denmark. It appears he went alcoholic and offed himself last year....
Awesome MP3 compilation
La Blogothèque: We have a long compilation tradition here. And we wanted to celebrate the site's second month. So here is a mix CD called Point d'écoute (Part. 1 + Part. 2 ) (Listening Post) that we made to sum...
Matt on Etech et al
Matt posted a rant about the upcoming ETech: It's just that the topics on offer: y'know - the copyfight, social software, bloody blogs, web services etc. might still be worthy topics for discussion, but I feel like I've been around...
Gratuitous political statements of the day
In the spirit of Turkey Day, here is "A thanksgiving Prayer" by William S. Burroughs Thanks for the wild turkey and the passenger pigeons, destined to be shit out through wholesome American guts. Thanks for a continent to despoil and...
Devices of Design
I attended the "Devices of Design" symposium, hosted by the CCA (Canadian Center for Architecture) and the Daniel Langlois Foundation for Art, Science, and Technology (Daniel Langlois was the founder of Softimage). Devices of Design, a collaboration between the Canadian...
My first Sony Walkman
Following a post by Nika, I thought it'd be cool to start a "thing", a "meme" perhaps... whatever. Use the TrackBacks, Luke! To find your first Sony Walkman, check out Pocket Calculator's Vintage Walkman Museum: Sony So, "I'll never forget...
Open Source Religion
"Release early, release often." (disclaimer: many of the facts - names of cultures, places, people and dates - are not terribly known to me. I am not a scholar, I'm a hobbyist.) There exists a fantastic Open Source project...
On Levendis
Few people have ever asked me what "levendis" means. Fewer still ever asked why I chose it for, amongst other things, my main Internet domain name. I came across the word Levendis in a short story by one Harlan Ellison,...
It's up to you
There is a time when the operation of the machine becomes so odious, makes you so sick at heart, that you can't take part, you can't even tacitly take part, and you've got to put your bodies upon the gears...
Malaise
New environments inflict considerable pain on the perceiver The biologist Otto Lowenstein, is his book on The Senses (Penguin Books,Ltd.), has some most helpful observations on the problems that arise upon any change in sensory mode, such as a...
In a postpostmodern state of mind.
In order to avoid ambiguity, over- or false- interpretation, it is crucial that one properly contextualize every element, in relation to every other element in it's environment. Meaning can only be found in the relationship of each object with each...
Style
Style is the answer to everything. Fresh way to approach a dull or dangerous day. To do a dull thing with style is preferable to doing a dangerous thing without style. To do a dangerous thing with style, is what...
Identites and celebrity
"Madame Hollywood" Felix Da Housecat Everybody wants to be hollywood The fame, the vanity, the glitz, the stories One day I'll become a great big star You know like the big dipper And maybe one day you can visit my...
How am I not myself?
- Do I bring my own chains? - We always do... I ‚ô• Huckabees‚òÖ‚òÖ‚òÖ‚òÖ‚òÖ...
McLuhan Festival
Mark Federman at the McLuhan Program (UofT) JUST posted about the McLuhan Festival that started yesterday... Either I was asleep or someone should have mentioned this earlier... Mark... ;) It's on for a week so, um... if I can bloody...
Tail wagging
As Joi links to me from his entry on Chris Johnson's Wired article "The Long tail", I figure I should riff a bit on what I see in all this and why I reminded him of Momus' excellent "Pop Stars, nein danke!" article.
Lost in connections
Just noticed that in his track "God Only Knows" off of Fantasma, Cornelius samples The Jesus & Mary Chain's "Just Like Honey", which is the closing track of Lost In Translation as the credits begin to roll.
What am I listening to?
So following the boss's...... endorsement(?), I've had to figure out a quick way to include last.fm / audioscrobbler data on a webpage...
Creative Commons Activists and Activism
all VERY well done!), I can't seem to find a resources center and a community support network for people to get really involved beyond choosing a license and applying it to their work - provided they get it and they actually produce stuff. There are loads of people who don't read weblogs, or WIRED magazine, who not only don't know that they as creatives have options, but also don't fully realize the cultural lock-down they are living in. Ignorance of rights and responsibilities is the death knell for freedom, choice, democracy...
Just one word: plastics.
I find myself cringing, internally and externally, as did Dustin Hoffman in "The Graduate", when confronted with this bit of advice.Except today it's "marketing", not "plastics", and the advice giver is an older me, and not some ancient neighbor.I cringe at the inherent evil in any such enterprise: pursuing so unnatural an affair, just because you know you can capture and corner a market by making a widget no one else has thought of.Unnatural how?... And just as now we have things that could not be made of anything other than plastic, we now have cultures entirely made up of marketing.
More thoughts on Björk, Medúlla and the music biz
Context: Previous Björk entry: Björk's Pirate Flag Björk.com Medúlla Interview This Blog Sits at the: Björk: Shapes, not patterns Voir.ca - Le chant des possibles (fr) First of all, Medúlla is still standing at the gates of my ear, ring the bell hoping to get into my head.... ;) Second, as far as being "Avant Garde" or "fresh and new", lest it be noted that many have done technically the same thing (produced music from "found sounds"), not least of all Björk collaborators Matmos.
Culturalists
In broad terms, hyperbole generator you love to hate)--> culture is where the social - groups of individuals interacting - meets media & technology.There are plenty of technologists with weblogs, the social sciences people jumped on board about 6 to 9 months ago (in force anyways, and from where I am sitting). Journalists got invited to a fight, and the marketing world has been flexing it's muscle lately as well.What a joy it is to find the culture wonks getting in on the game!
On demand living
Over the last few weeks, a realization has been slowly rising to the surface from the depths of my subconscious. (This is actually an apt portrayal of how generally my mind works, but I am going to share with you this specific one.)
Oh god, no
This makes me so incredibly, furiously ill. Why, oh why oh why oh why oh why does man so single-mindedly seek to destroy his own humanity? (To be clear, this is not, in my view, an islamic issue: it is human.
Björk's Pirate Flag
bjork.com : medúlla special : interview “You know, its ironic that just at the point the lawyers and the businessmen had calculated how to control music, the internet comes along and fucks everything up.” Björk gives the finger again, this time waving it into the air.
Oh it's about branding, not human achievement!
Olympian struggle - Fans face boot for eating or drinking wrong brands at games Strict regulations published by Athens 2004 last week dictate that spectators may be refused admission to events if they are carrying food or drinks made by...
"Surroundings Defend System"
The weapon against boring and weary surroundings With seamless vision diminishers, adjustable safetybelt, 40 Watt stereo speaker installation and standard compliant 3.5 mmm jack-plug for fully compatible audio-experience, you can totally shut yourself off from the surrounding world and...
How things have changed
Ed Bilodeau: How things have changed Some features of codes of professional ethics are common to all professions. A universal rule is that against advertising. Advertising among professional men has been defined as an ‘attempt to get practice by other...
The poets
Armed with poetry poets lurk streets and shoes skirts and sun poets lurk armed with poetry with lyre and rhythem poets yell into a sea of heads bobing across concrete below the shadow of the all seeing buildings armed...
The straight line
Mould Manifesto against Rationalism in Architecture In 1952 I spoke of the civilization of make believe, the one we must shake off, myself, the first of all! I spoke of columns of gray men on the march toward sterility...
Reality frictions
The New York Times > The Hostess Diary: My Year at a Hot Spot Not only is this an entertaining read, it is also an interesting account of one of the friction points between two very different realities: Celebrity and...
What does Fox know about reality?
Fox Networks Group to Launch Fox Reality Channel in Early 2005 Fox Networks Group President and CEO Anthony Vinciquerra today announced the creation of a new cable and satellite network, Fox Reality Channel. The new network is scheduled to debut...
Where there's smoke
A quick note on Michael Moore/Fahrenheit 9/11... Yes, it is propaganda (not a dirty word, remember... propaganda is not always a synonym for "lies"...), yes he may present things out of context sometimes, yes he's making alot of noise... But...
Corruption, culture and democracy
"I think a general government necessary for us, and there is no form of government but what may be a blessing to the people if it is well administered; and believe farther that this is likely to be well...
An example
Here is an example of information hunting and establishing connections between bits of data online. This story will remain intentionally vague and short on specific URLs for two reasons: to protect the individual's privacy and to keep my Google rank...
Away?
For the time being, sure, we step "away" from our computers... step away from the attention of our IM buddies... But when this goes mobile? "You are in my pocket." "My attention is not on this interface at the...
Aprils in Montorio-Ru!
エイプリルズオンライン（ライブインフォメーション＆ニュース） Aprils online (English) Oh yay!!! This the band I saw with Patrick in Tokyo! July 9th in Montreal! Doesn't say where though ... In fact, it is "unconfirmed". Hm. I have emailed the organiser. I may be able to...
A Momus view of the music industry
Click opera - Interview techniques of the insane Shelve your ADD, sit back and take five minutes, as this is well worth listening to. The question and Momus' answer. (No it is not highbrow, it is smart and playful.)...
Cory on DRM at MSFT
Cory Doctorow gave a presentation on DRM (Digital Rights Management) at Microsoft and shares the text with us. Beautifully explained in an accessible way... and of course in Cory's inimitable style. :)...
Death in the age of Social Software
Following the dreadful email mentioned in the previous post, I was contacted with the following suggestion: ... should we put something onto the bulletin board at Friendster for the non-bloggers who know her there? It seems like a grim task,...
Come together
An awesome Flash based video for The Beatles classic "Come Together". (~8Meg SWF) Beautiful tribute. Beautiful example of being inspired by someone else's work and producing something beautiful. Lest no one get hurt. Or in trouble......
Eric Idle says "thanks!"
This may be old news but I just heard it and well, you should too: Pythonline - Eric Idle presents... The FCC Song....
On elections
Now, lemme get this straight... "On Sunday, Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin called general elections for June 28, 2004." One month. On Politics 'In our time the destiny of man presents its meanings in political terms' - Thomas Mann HOW...
MP3 blogs
A list of mp3 blogs. I've wanted to do the same for a while now but was hesitant. Guess I'll start too. :)...
Demystify
This kind of thing drives me up the wall: TIME Magazine Cover: Secrets of the Teen Brain - May. 10, 2004 "Research is revolutionizing our view of the adolescent mind - and explaining its mystifying way" Listen, here is some...
An economy of caring
Friend Jim Moore is doing all he can to garner attention, raise awareness and just get people to care about a situation of genocide and other nastyness happening in Sudan at the moment. Much of his efforts are focused on...
Who, what, when, where and why, and the death of the author
After reading Foucault's short piece "Author Function", I thought the following. Take any expression, be it a text, a song, a painting, and label it "The What". Label the author (composer, painter, etc) "The Who", and and attach it as...
Cinema disobedience
While I loathe linking to BoingBoing, I hafta say I'm with Cory on this one 100%....
Sneaker pimps, showin' stripes
The retro sneaker craze is getting to me. For some reason, I love it. I'd have to say I'm partial to Adidas myself. The solid teutonic three stripes. Puma never appealed to me, probably because of the brotherly strife (1920...
Interconnectedness and patterns, knowledge and freedom
Mark Federman, over at the McLuhan Program, offers up this great entry. While the framework of his entry is based on how the limitations on media use that the RIAA (and MPAA) are seeking will effectively limit access to information...
Reading the graph
over at Jim Moore's . I read it like this: The more information leaks out of Iraq, the less enthusiastic the American public is about the whole thing. (There is hope afterall!) And, look at what was needed for...
Doctor's appointment
Taking a computer in for repair, especially a PERSONAL computer, should be like going to your GP, family doctor, dentist or vet. Why can I not call up my local mac shop, tell em what's wrong, make an appointment, show...
I and U
Jyri posits: What counts as a person? What might it mean to design not for preexisting, independent individuals with fixed boundaries but for partially known, locally enacted performances, out of which "individuals" may temporarily materialize as relational effects? How might...
F CC u
[IP] BBC makes fun of FCC Puritism It seems some of the Brits are rather amused at the goings on recently at the FCC. Channel Four International (C4i) asked a number of US and UK film and TV stars what...
Maiko dances
Finally got around to stitching together the handful of 30 second video clips I took that night in the Gion District of Kyoto last July. These were taken with my tiny Pentax Optio S which only does 30 seconds...
When thoughts collide
I received today my copy of Christopher Alexander's "The Timeless Way of Building" and floated down through the two first chapters as though carried by a gently nimble stream of clear water. More peaceful pondering on that later. I ordered...
Whistling in the dark
For years I have been regularly singing a little song to myself, and sometimes a bit louder for others. To me it speaks of the madness of symbols. To those who hear me sing it, it speaks of the madness...
Amen
Mark Federman, Chief Strategist over at the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology has posted this for us: What is the Meaning of The Medium is the Message? I need to go lie down now. ;)...
Absurdity and that "F" word i keep using...
From the Interesting People mailing list: Recent comments about how we live in dangerous and chilling times (after 9/11) should be seen in perspective to 1968, when: - 25000 American soldiers had been killed in 3 years of the Vietnam...
Baseball
One night about a week before leaving for the ETech Conference/Digital Democracy Teach-In, and just after having spent some time hanging out with the very cool Dean For America gang, I caught "Field of Dreams" playing on late-night television. I...
Equal schmequel
Equal footing of social standing on a level playing field is a pipe dream; one that if you smoke too much from will blind you to the malcreants who will take advantage of your torpor to hoist themselves above you....
What do you call it when
This morning, out of the blue, old buddy Michel IMs me this: i had a friend who had a cool idea for something that'd be kinda like friendster, but for books, music and dvds and stuff. so basically a group...
Round One
It seems to me that the prizefight between mass media and "weblogs" has now begun in ernest. Some have been debating the "weblogs versus journalism" conundrum, and the use of weblogs and "social software" in political campaigning has garnered much...
McDiet
New York Post Online Edition: entertainment Morgan Spurlock decided to become a gastronomical guinea pig. His mission: To eat three meals a day for 30 days at McDonald's and document the impact on his health....
On unfashionalble sources
I picked up a very large but seemingly very interesting book this afternoon at one of these liquidation bookstores. Five hundred plus pages about democracy; it's history and what "the trouble is" with it. I sat down and started reading...
Wither, Friendster
So, well, wow... the next big thing in "social networks" sites? These guys basically rolled up Friendster, LinkedIn, Upcoming and probably a few more, into one. So far so good. Still totally centralised and closed, but a step ahead no...
Dean's Garage Band
Dean Goes Nuts Amazing. "Media Remix". Thousands of people - the above being a small sample - have taken to sampling Dean's Iowa Caucus Concession Speech and making remixes. The power of public domain source materials and easy to use...
Federal matching funds vs. electability
For some strange reason, some people, who really should know better, are more concerned with some vague notion of "electabilty" rather than the cold hard economic facts of the trap known as "federal matching funds". Now I think I have...
Classnotes Wiki
Mike's "Harkness Table" classnotes wiki is taking off! Way to go! It'll be fun to watch this develop... and spread......
Canadian RIAA gets its way
For no good reason, I visited the canadian apple online store today. I like to go in there sometime, poke around and drool. Go figure... Anyways, so I click through to the iPod section and - what da heck, eh?!...
Why... I don't wear... the bow-tie
Why tech firms are out of tune While the above article is tucked away in the BBC's technology section, it speaks directly of something very political: democracy in the digital age. Ugh, can't believe I just said that, but it's...
Brand memory
Brandmarker An attempt to evaluate the actual power of brands by making Austrian people draw a total of twelve logos (nine international, three typically European) from memory. Things to note in this: In most cases, if not all, some respondents...
Collapsing
We have relationships with every person we meet/know. We have relationship networks which connect all these people to us and to each other. We manage relationships by being nodes and establishing identities (identity facets). So if we think of ourseleves...
Revisiting ironies
I just got an impulse to drive out to the suburbs where I grew up and visit the private french school I attended for eleven years. It was the kind of business where we wore uniforms, stood when the beloved...
No Comment
As part of my cable television package, I ordered EuroNews. Nevermind that the news reported is from a european perspective (a welcome change from the CNN et al), but there are two other major characteristics of this All-News network I...
Content & Relationship
During a "Content" conversation, I was brought to realize that things like "bar talk", "chewing the fat", "shootin' da shit", et al... are Relationship conversations. It was further pointed out that these are just as important as "real", or "Content",...
Michael Moore publishes letters from U.S. soldiers in Iraq
I just received an e-mail from good friend and former employer, Warren Wilansky. Warren and the gang at Plank Design do all of Michael Moore's websites. He sent me the text of the latest Mike's Message. A small excerpt: What...
Remix culture
Creative Commons put together a Flash animation, Reticulum Rex, giving an update on what's going on with their effort. Re-democratization of "culture". Remix. Author? Editor. "The Library, which some call 'The Universe'..."...
Read on Emergent Leadership
I few months ago, I wrote about a book I had started reading: Herbert Read's "To hell with culture". The volume is essentially made up of a number of papers Read published between 1941 and 1961. The aforementioned post was...
Stick this in your Google and smoke it
In a comment on Joi's site, Stewart Butterfield remarked: I have no idea how to settle an argument about this, but I contend that, for the overwhelming majority of blog readers and writers, blogs have almost nothing to do with...
A great Canadian scandal
In a "Life and Times" TV profile of Canada's exiting Prime Minister, Jean Chretien, in regards to a corruption scandal he was accused of a few years back involving some investments in a golf club and a contentious phone call...
Talking to myself
Continuing on the cyborg theme, I thought to myself: I've been here on the sofa all afternoon, fumbling with my awkward iBook, and yet it is here, with this sub-par setup, that my thoughts flow most freely into the computer,...
Some small good
I'm not going to get into the politics of Québec's "Office de la Langue Fran√ßaise" (a.k.a. "The Language Police"), but at least there is some small good that comes of it: Le Grand dictionnaire terminologique is one heck of a...
No Tattoos Allowed!
Joi's Moblog: No Tattoos Allowed! They actually have signage for that. Amazing....
Edison
Kate over at Montreal City Weblog points to some film footage Thomas Edison took in Montreal in 1901. Watching it I thought to myself: "Could this genius, in his wildest dreams, for one second, conceive that here I would be,...
Craig's in town
Finally. craigslist: montreal online community Note the RSS feeds for everything... Thanks Stevey....
Electioneering, stats and the network effect.
What a seriously odd series of moments the last 72 hours have been. Not five minutes ago I thought to myself "I'd like to see some visual representations of U.S. campaign stats. Like, where's the candidates money coming from, where...
Gore Vidal on Charlie Rose, talking about Founding Fathers
Gore Vidal was on Charlie Rose last night. I had heard the name before but never clued in as to who he is. Turns out he is one of the preeminent American historians and social critics of our day. (Which...
Recognition
Joi posted something the other day which took two full days to get a mildly negative comment. It's not even all that negative really. The commenter very lightly and respectfully nudged Joi to censor himself. The post quotes a protestant...
The Destroyer of Worlds
Ryuichi Sakamoto - "Oppenheimer's Aria" from -LIFE- "We waited until the blast had passed, walked out of the shelter and then it was extremely solemn. We knew the world would not be the same. A few people laughed, a...
Pulp fiction intertextuality
Film Review:Tarantino Interview This interview was conducted in Los Angeles on August 28, 2003 during a press junket for KILL BILL: VOLUME ONE held exclusively for the Japanese media. In this one-on-one chat, Quentin Tarantino goes deep into the many...
Semi-conscious
In Joi's posting today, he quips:I remember thinking in the dream, "oh, I should blog this... " Judging from the comments, some folks find this strange and funny. I don't find it either. I think it's perfectly natural. Whenever you...
The Library of Am'zon
I was going to write something about this new Amazon feature which searches the contents of books now and not just ttitles, authors, etc... But Wired beat me to it. In fact, apparently they beat themselves to it, which is...
More from Jason Salavon
Jason Salavon - Selected projects Same artist as previous post. I love it! "Every Playboy Centerfold, The Decades" Homes for Sale MTV's 10 Greatest Music Videos of All Time Brilliant....
The Late Night Triad
Jason Salavon - The Late Night Triad From February to August of 2003, I obsessively recorded the major US late night talk shows. This amounts to hundreds of hours of the David Letterman, Jay Leno, and Conan O'Brien programs. From...
Absurd
Japander.com UPDATE! Sean Connery Suntory Whiskey ad!!! An archive of japanese TV commercials starring American stars. Funny, and absurd, on many levels. :) For example, Brad Pitt riding a surf board down a set of stairs, falls off... says "ooww..."...
"To hell with culture"
To Hell with CultureSir Herbert Read (1893-1968).Leading poet, publisher, educational theorist and social reformer, who was one of the most influential art critics of the twentieth century. Having only read the introduction thus far, I wish to share with you...
Truth for lies
Michael Moore.com : Michael Moore responds to the wacko attackos... PS. From now on, I will deal with all wacko attackos on this page. If you hear something about me that doesn't sound quite right, check in here. Read it,...
Found translation
The New York Times has posted a translation of one of the key scenes in Sofia Coppola's brilliant film "Lost in Translation" which is entirely in japanese, without subtitles. The scene is brilliant, and seeing this translation in hindsight makes...
"Homesick"
Lost in Translation Is it possible to be homesick for a place you've only briefly visited? Anyways, I thought this was a great movie. Great job on every level. Bravo!...
Get On The Mic
Paul's Boutique Samples and References List Thanks Gen! This is a cultural document. It lists all the samples the Beastie Boys used on their album "Paul's Boutique", as well as references made (quotes, inspirations, etc) and the full lyrics. All...
Grafitti war?
12" Stash - NYC Edition I do not understand this. Ok, I know some grafitti artists are elevated to celebrity status (and yes I can even consider some graf as art, definitly), and, sure, we live in such a culture...
Turn your tongue one hundred times before speaking.
Smart Mobs - Cell Phone Recording May Breach Privacy Folks are going ape about cellphones with call-recording features. Privacy this and privacy that. On the above linked entry I commented: Very simple: never say anything that you will regret. What's...
Freedom of press
I just got back from a jog up Mont-Royal, where I stopped and read Noam Chomsky's "Media Control: The Spectacular Achievements of Propaganda". More on that later, and here are links to good Chomsky stuff: [isbn.nu author profile, The Noam...
Stats - beautiful, scaleable - stats
history flowvisualizing dynamic, evolving documents and the interactions of multiple collaborating authors Aside from being quite beautiful, I find these rather fascinating. Context derived from patterns are central to how I think. Perhaps how we think? Hmm. More food...
BBC Creative Archive
Taped at the BBCCan the Beeb put its entire archive on the Web?By Paul BoutinFor those of us still debating whether to shell out the 40-odd bucks for Fawlty Towers: The Complete Collection on DVD, BBC Director-General Greg Dyke may...
Japanese Films at MWFF
The Montreal World Film Festival will be held from August 27 to September 7, 2003. The schedule system on their website was done my a monkey on crack. I had to first run a search by country in one browser...
Toy story
Elite Force Aviator:George W. BushU.S. President and Naval Aviator12" Action Figure at KBtoys.com Or is it more like: Elite Republican Army: U.S. Dictator and Warmongering Chickenhawk - 12" Action FigurePre-order:†Available 09/11/03Usually ships 1-3 business days after sobering up.DescriptionBBI proudly introduces...
Nobody
Just a quick rant and drive-by-insult. Nota Bene: The following was written in an inexplicable ranting frenzy of annoyance. I went a bit far, I admit, and apologise. I do not, however, retract. Joi speaks of language and land as...
Eleanor Blogger
Wirefarm : Eleanor Roosevelt as a blogger? Just wanted to point out this very intersting fact that Jim uncovered while telling his mother about blogging. When I started to explain how I just write about whatever happens to me, or...
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...
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....
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...
About media conglomeration
From the mouth of one of the horses... NOW: Transcript - Bill Moyers Interviews Barry Diller | PBS I actually caught this on TV the other night. It was astounding to watch. Moyers was dumbfounded by the words he heard....
The day the music ...
Well, Apple announced it's online music store, which will spark at least one cultural phenomenon and feed another: iTunes Store Sample surfing, and one-stop-free-shop for mashmixers looking for samples. Yay!!! On another note, Madonna had the cojones to go and...
Teenaged cyborgs, moblogging and Emergence.
Link found on Smart Mobs, and quotes below lifted from the Miami Herald article it linked to. ''[Cellphones] extend the spatial and temporal boundaries of a physical encounter,'' she said, explaining that cellphones are providing a way for young people...
While we're on the topic... (RSS)
Joi Ito has gone and done it. He bought and read Ben Hammersley's new O'Reilly book "Content Syndication with RSS", Of course this means I have to run out and get it too (shame on me for not having it...
Emergence: post-anarchy?
Reading the initial chapters of "Emergence: The Connected Lives of Ants, Brains, Cities, and Software" by Steven Johnson, wherein, amongst many other things, he speaks of a young Engels' sojourn in Manchester, England, I am struck by a correlation of...
Some points he's missing
"The Register" writer Andrew Orlowski misses a few points, and makes some fair ones, in his article "Anti-war slogan coined, repurposed and Googlewashed... in 42 days". To all intents and purposes, the original meaning has been erased. Obliterated, in just...
Lawrence Lessig's presentation at SxSW2003
Heath Row's Media Diet Thanks to Heath (whom I briefly met at Bruce Sterling's "end of SxSW" party - nice guy!), we have what I guess is a verbatim trasncript of Lawrence Lessig's brilliant presentation. Thanks Heath!...
Internet Law event in Rio
Copyfight: Intellectual property politics and issues. Print. Read later. Looks very interesting....
<<What are your thoughts on Lily Chou-Chou?>>
<< [[ some thoughts about the movie "All About Lily Chou Chou" ]] >> <<Erm... Not sure... I found it very difficult to follow (who is who, who does what, what are the relationships between the characters... When is what...
Re-arrange
"Time was when the art of arrangement" -- the creative reinterpretation of songs -- "occupied an honored place in musical composition." Read. Understand. Act. Rip. Mix. Burn....
Finally the "R" word...
Joi Ito finally said it; the R word: Revolution. In his case he speaks of Japan and it's political/economic systems, but I've been itching to hear it lobbed about here in North America, and more specifically, in the U.S. Helloooo...
© —> CC
Lawrence Lessig shook the very foundations of the Manufactured Reality. Hallelujah. A trully powerful and engaging orator, masterful presentation giver, he had the room enthralled, shocked, scared, outraged and entertained. This was THE historic event of the convention I felt....
Knowledge, language and cultural erosion
Steph forwarded me an email from the archive.org mailing list. It raises concerns regarding the degradation of global culture due to the alarming rate of extinction of many of the world's languages......
Knowledge, language and cultural erosion
Steph forwarded me an email from the archive.org mailing list. It raises concerns regarding the degradation of global culture due to the alarming rate of extinction of many of the world's languages......
"This tape collection gets bigger by the minute..."
Interesting summary of the economics of a hypothetical rock band, as broken down by a journalist at the NY Daily News. [update] Another money breakdown Now, read what some "with it" people inside the recording industry have to say about...
Mediocrity in art, and curators.
Mark Federman, again, commenting on some ideas by Steve Mann about mediocrity in the arts: Steve says:Many traditional curators love mediocre artists, because they provide an intellectually blank canvas upon which they can paint their curatorial and philosophical discourses. Especially...
Ok, here's the deal:
I am going to write... something... a book or an attempt of some such thing, entirely online. I've set up a Wiki system and anybody will be allowed to comment, annotate, spell-check (hehehe) the texts. I'm aiming mid-january to begin,...
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