Accept no substitutes

Month: November 2006 (Page 2 of 4)

Translations from the Japanese – Howl and Godzilla

The winds are down but there is ocean overwash out at Rodanthe keeping Hatteras broken in two. No ferry access there. Swan Quarter will start their ferry runs this evening. We’ll likely catch an early ride from there tomorrow.

In the meantime, Tucker and I watched Howl’s Moving Castle. The best anime storytelling of a British tale designed and directed by Hayao Miyazaki (of Spirited Away fame) and executed by Pixar (as owned by Disney at the time). Much news good and bad. The worst is the Calcifer, fire demon, character who smells too much of the kind of characters voiced by Robin Williams — parrots, genies etc. But overall a very successful crossing of cultures — Japanimation, Pixarwood, and British wizardly storytelling. Some bumps in that melding but overall well-met.

Godzilla: Final Wars though was a badly done work even by the low bar set by Godzilla movies. I love what that low bar produces. But that movie played like a bad preview for a video game. The characters, their motions and the unlucky sound track by Emerson, Lake and Palmer’s Keith Emerson was annoyingly game influenced. Influenced by bad game music at that. The translation involved here was not culture as identity but culture as media format. Godzilla Final Wars the movie was more of a excuse and a long trailer for Godzilla Final Wars the game. In many cases, traffic between movie and game culture works or is at least amusing. This time it failed at every turn. And they left out Biollante.

Washed out roads and stalled ferries

The storm sitting off of Cackalacky has put all the ferries in port and flooded Highway 12 down Hatteras. Looks like the weather will continue through late Wednesday night. The State Ferry site says not to expect ferries til Thursday morning at the earliest. The upside is that we don’t have to drive down in the storm. The downside is that we won’t be on Ocracoke til Thursday at the earliest.

WRAL has the best coverage and the best links to coastal webcams.

Who’s on the Left? Jones and Moglen in India

Owning the Future

Possibly the only time that I’ll be to the left of Eben Moglen is preserved on this video made at the “Owning the future: Ideas and their role in the digital age” conference in India. I’m on your right tho ;->

Can lawyers say yes? Eben says he can since he represents hackers. Much more here in this nicely produced, CC licensed video from Red Hat.

The road to Delhi with Eben Moglen and Paul Jones
Produced by Kristin Hondros

Ever wished you could be a fly on the wall when tech-savvy folks gather? We got the chance at this summer’s Knowledge Symposium in Delhi, India.

The official title of the conference was “Owning the future: Ideas and their role in the digital age.” In between the discussions and sessions, we sat in on a conversation between Eben Moglen and Paul Jones. Two of the open source movement’s big thinkers–the lawyer (and founder of the Software Freedom Law Center) and the curator of ibiblio.org (one of the Internet’s largest public repositories).

Moglen and Jones have an open and fast-paced discussion that touches on international labor dynamics, technology expansion, intellectual property, economics, capitalism, and freedom. (Just imagine what they could do in more than 8 minutes…)

Must be more to Morrie

Went to see the opening night of the Playmakers’ production of “Tuesdays with Morrie” on Saturday. It was mostly harmless. I mean I laughed at the quips, but the play didn’t stay with me. I didn’t feel for the characters. It was without without the power and doubt of “Wit” or the insistence of “Whose Life is this Anyway?” both about dying smart people (who are more interesting than Morrie as characters — he, Morrie, is much more lovable and in a way simple which makes him predictable and ultimately shallow).

Morrie and Mitch are not as diverting or deep as say either character in “My Dinner with Andre.” Nothing in the “Tuesdays” approaches anything said or written by Spalding Gray. There is more comedy and more good ole pathos in David Mamet‘s “Duck Variations.”

I was amused by Morrie and not so taken or put off by Mitch, but soon afters I felt letdown.

There was one exchange in which Morrie asks Mitch, his former student now a Detroit sports writer, “What have you got against touchy-feely?”
Mitch answers “It’s fine by me except for the touching part [pause] and the feeling part.”

Morrie says something about God later. Mitch: “I thought you were an agnostic?” Morrie – “I was but now I’m not so
sure” that kind of thing. I laughed at the time but only once and only quickly.

But “Wit,” that play haunted me for months.

Note: The Daily Tar Heel reviewer agrees with me (on his own terms of course).

Further note: Morrie loves to quote Auden out of context and incorrectly as “We must love each other or die.” I too love the line but realize some of its complications. The line. “We must love one another or die” comes from “September 1, 1939”. Auden first changed the line to read “We must love one another and die.” Next he dropped the stanza containing the line. Then completely frustrated he dropped the poem from his Collected saying “We die anyway.” The poem was restored to Auden’s collected work only after his death. I love the line in the original and in the poem, but I also love the complexity with which I must read it. How right was Auden at each stage of revision? How true the poem at each point in his life? In my life? And the context of the poem, the beginning for World War II

Pamphlets of Sun Ra

Sun Ra at piano - in a mild moment George Clinton

Sally alerts us to the ur-texts from the ur-spaceman behind the most modern jazz. “The Wisdom of Sun Ra” is just out from University of Chicago Press.

Publishers blurb:

From the Arkestra to his experiments with synthesizers, Sun Ra was one of the most inventive jazz musicians in history. Yet until now, there has not been a collection of his earliest writings that reveal the beginnings of his work as philosopher, mystic, and Afro-Futurist. This new volume unveils over forty newly discovered typewritten broadsheets on which Sun Ra expounded his wholly unique philosophical message. While in Chicago during the mid-1950s, Sun Ra preached on street corners and occasionally created scripts to accompany his lectures—intricate texts that invoke science fiction, Biblical prophecy, etymology, and black nationalism. Until this point, the only broadsheet known to exist was one given to John Coltrane in 1956. These newly unearthed writings attest to the provocative brilliance that inspired Coltrane. Sun Ra annotated many of them by hand, and together the sheets reveal fascinating new aspects of his worldview. The Wisdom of Sun Ra is an invaluable compendium of writings by one of the most intriguing and influential jazz figures of the century.

Not by coincidence but because of an odd alignment of the planets I’m sure, Dr. Funkenstein aka Atomic Dog aka George Clinton who is surely the living heir to Sun Ra in many many ways was interviewed on Morning Edition (special features on their website).

Paul Muldoon in NYTimes Mag

Great little article on Paul Muldoon in today’s NYTimes Magazine. A bit too much on his garage band project,Rackett, and not nearly enough room to show how creative and expansive his poetry projects are — deceptively so in a very good way. Also we learn that Helen Vendler now says that Paul has an emotional center. Thanks Helen. He had one all along just not one worn on his sleeve.

Also an okay video of Muldoon reading in a studio. The poem “The Sightseers”

A Different Fly-Over

Kirk Ross gets the sound down from Thursday’s flyover of Chapel Hill by Navy jets on Exile on Jones Street. But I was set upon by equally unsettling fliers that morning.

First there was their chatter in the distance. Then the swooshing and the too loud movement of air. Then the darkening of the sky. They wove an unpredictable flight pattern as the went over me near dawn. A good look showed that they weren’t even all the same. A collection of black birds — starlings, cowbirds, grackles and a blackbird or two. Hundreds streaming over.

Then silence.

Then another flight. Louder. More of them. More wild shifts.

Those of us who saw Hitchcock’s movie remember how eerie flights of birds can be. Especially since Hitchcock used no music in his movie only the sounds in the birds as emlated on Oskar Sala‘s mixtrautonium. Those sounds I heard at dawn that day were almost the same as Tippi Hedren heard.

Sadness and Crying Studies

You would think that if Happiness has its own journal that Sadness and Depression would too. But I’m not finding one. Not that that makes me unhappy much less sad and certainly not depressed.

I did find this wonderful 1984 article “Toward the Laboratory Study of Sadness and Crying” by Albert Marston, Joseph Hart, Curtis Hileman, and William Faunce in the American Journal of Psychology, Vol. 97, No. 1 (Spring, 1984), pp. 127-131 in which we learn “Despite a long history of frightening, angering, sexually arousing, and even humoring their patients, psychologists are reluctant to sadden them, perhaps out of ethical and professional concern. Or perhaps there has been uncertainty about whether sadness could be systematically aroused and measured in the laboratory.”

But don’t feel sad about that: “Interest in depression has recently [in 1984] blossomed…”

I’m not sure I feel good about that.

Rights and Innovation

I will be speaking to Computer Science 380 classes on “Digital Rights and Innovation” soon. Andrew Chin spoke on November 14 about his part in the Microsoft anti-trust suit (the browser one) and I’m up on November 28 scheduled for 5:00 pm in Sitterson 014. now in Carroll’s large auditorium (after the flood in Sitterson).

I’ve asked the students to read Chapters 1 and 8 of Eric von Hippel’s Democratizing Innovation. Chapter 1 is an Introduction and a Summary of the book by chapters that will give a great overview. Chapter 8 “Adapting Policy to User Innovation” is the meat of our discussion from a policy and law point of view.

Both chapters and in fact the whole book can be bought or downloaded for free from Eric von Hippel’s site.

I’m also asking folks in the class that have questions and/or issues that they’d like discussed to post them here as comments.

I welcome your suggestions and comments as well.

Deadly Tornado in Eastern NC

The wind was blowing in sheets today as I tried to get from the School of Government back to join a conference call in Manning Hall. I stayed inside and called in by cell.
The folks down in the Delco-Riegelwood area near Whiteville, NC weren’t lucky enough to be inside a nice stone and brick building. The trailerparks and other homes were blown to bits killing as many as 9 people according to the most recent reports.

The Whiteville News Reporter has the story and chilling pictures of the damage.

Citizen Journalists capture tazering by UCLA cops

UCLA cops got very taser-happy on a student who didn’t bring his id to the library. Other students documented the nearly 7 minute torture show in which the victim with his hand handcuffed behind his back was zapped a reported four times (I counted 5) while begging for mercy. A single tazering immobilizes the target for 5 to 15 minutes, yet the taser-bearers demand that the victim “get up or we’ll do it again” Another student asking for the badge numbers of the campus cops is told she should shut up or she’ll “get Tased too.”
Read here in the Daily Bruin. Or watch the painful video on YouTube here.

SUR down G’mint, CS and NCREN to go.

Had a very good meeting with the Computer Science folks and the IBM Shared University Grant folks this afternoon. Don Smith has some intriguing network load measuring work going on. John Smith has some great code generation from XML to JAR. There’s also good work done by Prasun Dewan and Sasa Junuzovic on something that seemed odd – PowerPoint animation and collaboration.

My own notes from my part are here.

Upcoming talks:

  • Nov 16 – Thursday 8:15 am “UNC Local Government of the Future Conference” Education Panel. UNC School of Government.
  • Nov 28 – Tuesday 5 pm CS 380. “Innovation and Copyright” UNC Computer Science Department
  • Dec 8 – Friday 2:30 “ibiblio.org at NCREN” North Carolina Research and Education Network Community Day.
  • Note NCREN Day is 4/5s full. Over 100 people signed up as of today.

    RSVVP Today – Eating well helps others

    Today, Tuesday November 14 is RSVVP day! You eat at a restaurant and 10% of your bill goes to the Urban Ministries in Chapel Hill and Durham.

    On Tuesday, November 14, 2006, area restaurants will donate 10% of their breakfast, lunch and dinner proceeds to help alleviate hunger in the Triangle.

    It’s simple. We advertise. The public eats out (or gets take-out). The restaurant makes a donation. Everyone gets a meal.

    Restaurants sharing V(5) + V(5) percent (5+5=10%), or RSVVP, has raised more than $425,000 to fight hunger since its inception in 1989.

    The fundraiser will be advertised extensively on TV, radio, newspapers, direct mail, and posters.

    Our major sponsors include SunTrust Bank, ABC 11, The Herald-Sun and The Chapel Hill Herald, Money Mailer Durham-Orange, Curtis Media and 1360 WCHL. Posters will be displayed throughout the Triangle asking the public to “eat locally, feed locally” on our designated RSVVP day.

    Hosted by ibiblio.org

    Amongst the Online Journalists

    At Chapel Hill’s best kept secret, the Barbecue Joint, with Ed Cone, Kirk Ross, Henry Copeland and Dan Gillmor.

    Henry talked about deciding to be a financial journalist in Budapest thinking that with his understanding of finance that the journalism part would be a snap. Turned out to be tougher and he in the end did commit journalism but started companies that eventually led to BlogAds.com

    Lots of dissection of community sites and community news projects. What makes them? What makes a company work? Visionaries aren’t the ones who see the work through often. The programmer who is great at swift prototypes and proof of concept designs isn’t usually a very good production programmer or the one who turns out the final polished product. Likewise the production programmer who is great at seeing bugs and straightening out code usually can’t get the sloppy but needed prototype out. Are community thinkers like that? If so who are the production people in community — Ruby?

    A number of still secret projects hinted at and even delineated. Great talk and in what seems to be an oxymoron — great brussel sprouts! I can’t believe I wrote that but it’s true.

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