bopuc/weblog

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 a "commons" in a short post and semi-quotes N. Scott Momaday:

He also said that from a Native American perspective, land was a commons and language was a commons. Land was where we come from and return to. Language was where we lived. (He said it much more poetically than I can, but I can't remember exactly what he said.)

Beautiful. Love it.

Then comes along one Michael Wilson and says:

It's cute, it's clever, but it isn't correct. Not in a general semantics sense, not in semiotics, and anyone that's tried to introduce new terms or langauge shifts also recognizes it just ain't so.

I am reminded of one of my favorite movies, "Dead Man", wherein Nobody, the Native American played by Gary Farmer, keeps refering to Johnny Depp's character, William Blake, as "Stupidfuckingwhiteman".

Stupidfuckingwhiteman.

Language exists as an organism exists: it evolves, grows and dies in accordance to it's environment. We as a commons (as a group, as a community, as a mass of disparate elements) create that environment. Your puny little comment of "anyone trying to introduce new terms or language shifts also recognizes it just ain't so" is not only shortsighted, but patently false. You mean you've NEVER had your peer group adopt an expression from you? Loser. You mean you've never seen an entire cultural shift take root from one or two words in a marketing campaign? Open your eyes and ears!

Not to mention a million other examples of how collective usage defines language.

Either you didn't understand at all what was said, have little to no knowledge of semiotics, semantics and the entire field of linguistics, or your puny faux-logic-strangled brain can't see beyond it's own ego.

Either way: Stupidfuckingwhiteman.

Between work work, favor work, pro bono work and fun work, squeezed in with jogging, partying, relaxing and IRC'ing, here is a quick entry to say that life is good.

Busy as heck, but good.

And it's about to get even busier, if all goes well.

D'une beauté absolument émerveilante.

Merci Mme.Keiko, pour un site splendide.

Merci Karl, pour le lien.

Allez! Allez voir le site!

Well, cat's out of the bag. A bit early and a tad under the gun, but joi.ito.com 2.0beta1 is launched.

Joi Ito honored me with a request to help him clean up his weblog's look and feel and get it to validate. This launch is step one: i.e. I cleaned up *some* of the code and changed the stylesheets to make it look somewhat nicer. Also removed all (most?) table based layouts. (Bugs a need-a squashin'!)

I must re-iterate: this is STEP ONE. I know it doesn't validate. I know the side bar is a monster and it's information architecture is horrible. These things will be take care of. I promise.

We are requesting feedback/comments/suggestions on Joi's Wiki, if you are so inclined.

Joi, thank you again for this opportunity and privilege. I now have root on your server. Mehehehehe. ;)

My eyes are actually my mother's. One of the few traits of hers I inherited. Her dark eyes, as well as her love and ability for driving. Fast. (Not in the least reckless, by the way, as some of you may have concluded. I'll explain that in another post sometime.)

My father, however, had blue eyes and loved Mercedes-Benz. He drove Mercedes for almost all the years between my birth and his death. It was a matter of pride for him, and his family. They come from Stuttgart afterall.

BMW was poopooed. Not outright, but it was just not something that was wanted.

I learned to drive mostly in my mother's Saab 9000 Turbo: a front wheel drive. My father's E300 at the time was rear-wheel. Very different. I didn't like it. It did unpredictable things, though I understand one learns to drive differently depending on the drivetrain. In any case, the bloody thing's rear end would fishtail anytime it got air (yes I would loft cars over nice rolls in the road on Bord-Du-Lac road on Ile Bizard, where I grew up), and I never got the hang of it for handbrake spins.

BMW's are mostly front-wheel drive. And they are soooo sex. Merco's are more "distinguished gentleman"; Audi, too "executive". BMW's are sex.
And BMW's come in 4 wheel drive too. Which around here is a damn good thing. Try getting a rear-wheel drive out of a 4 foot snowbank sometime.

Now, I am nowhere near being able to afford either of them (I *could* swing a lease on a low-end model, but naaaahhh... I'd die of starvation and exposure to the elements), and I am by no means a car freak (really! I swear!), but poking around every now and then on the companies' respective websites and seeing macked out M3's and AMG's all around me, I can't help imagining.

And so I wonder... Sex? Or Distinguished gentleman? Which will it be, if and when the time comes?

It breaks my mother's heart that my dark eyes are turning blue on the edges...

The pharmacist called it an "orgelet", the french word for "sty". Reading up on it however, and seeing some nasty pictures, I'm not so sure that's what it is.

We'll see.

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 whatever I happen to be thinking or feeling, she said, "Oh, just like My Day." I was confused. Had my mother taken up blogging when I wasn't looking?
"Like your day? I don't understand. What did you do today?"
"No... My Day, You must remember, Eleanor Roosevelt's column.

(Bain Lesvèque - Rue Marianne Est - Built in 1908, or so it says.)

I took a walk this afternoon through the eastern part of The Plateau. It's an area I have been driving through every Sunday for the last few years to go do groceries. Today I walked it.

The area east of Rue Berri, along Rue Marianne, is really nice. I mean "I should live here" nice.

After picking up seasame seeds, a cantaloup, a quarter watermelon and a fair amount more produce, I commenced the stroll back. Heavy plastic bags digging into my palms.

So I decided to stop at a garage sale nearby of which I had been alerted to earlier by a friend. I shared the watermelon with the two pretty vietnamese girls who were trying to sell their old clothes and shoes, and who sheltered me briefly as a light drizzle had started. Thank you Dang & Mai. Here is the $120 cube watermelon I told you about.

Prepared sumonomo for dinner and ended up sharing with Sniffles who graciously shared her veggie curry (and the secret of it's preparation, as wella s how to make a wicked bitters). Mmmm.

A nice, quiet Sunday.

(merci pour la foto, Karl)

After 2 weeks in Japan (and many many minutes spent lost), I'm back home (more on all that later) and have been thinking about GPS, which seems to be pretty advanced, useage-wise, in Japan.

Now, the question is this: why would I need your address if I had your frontdoor's doorknob's precise GPS coordinates? Or to be more realistic, the GPS coordinates of your block, and the street address.

In most of the world, this is a moot point since addresses actually make sense... but in Tokyo... forget it!

So gimme that keitai with GPS and some app which allows me to plug in your coordinates... and hold my hand as I find you.

No?

This also plays on my idea of a suite of 3D software products for game consoles (and PCs) which allow travelers to virtually drive/walk/fly through places they are going to visit. Question of building the mental map before getting there.

"All these people have weblogs but they don't seem like geeks..."
(Justin's Links)

T"o"rip Space

Wonderful presentation of this GPS enabled, 3D interfaced, essentially moblog sphere service/application...

So here we are. Hopefully things will pick up...

Molly giving her presentation.

This videogame, and it's player are almost as impressive as the japanese Tetris championship footage I have lying around somewhere.
(nota bene: 15meg MPEG)

Under the gun for internet connection here sooo..

- some pics added. not all linked are there yet sorry...
- Kyoto is beautiful!
- Geisha! Well, Maiko, to be precise, but WOW.
- Train to Kobe at 11 today. Stopping in for a beef lunch. $40 steak? You bet. They fed this thing beer and massaged it everyday...
- Tonight Hiroshima.

Laters!