Gabriel Dance sends a link to his flash version of the Spanish game “A chave” for interested people to test out. He’s changing some of it as I type and supporting materials will join the game as well so’s you’ll have some idea of the history of what you are playing.
And yes I have knocked down the pin! Twing!
Category: Amusements (Page 21 of 31)
Things that are amusing
Among the Frontline shows that we’ve been testing out for streaming is Doug Rushkoff’s Merchants of Cool. Help us and test it out for yourself. It’s a good show. The stream should work on any player. I used quicktime on the Mac.
Let us know what you think.
Our IMLS funded initiative to build up the collection of films streaming from the Folkstreams.net site is going full steam ahead.
We’re up to 36 films online now including a great one on herbalist and healer Tommy Bass
At the time of his death in 1996, “Tommie†Bass, was probably the most well-known herbalist in the United States. The subject of scholarly and popular books, television features, a front-page essay in the Wall Street Journal, and numerous articles in newspapers and magazines, Tommie Bass lived his entire life in the Ridge and Valley region of Alabama where he devoted himself to “trying to give ease†to the many people who sought his advice.. “Tommie Bass†is a biographical portrait of Mr. Bass, told almost entirely in his own words.
This 1990 video features the exquisite mehndi body painting tradition as it is practiced among Pakistani immigrants living in Queens, New York City. The film follows a mehndi artist, Shenaz Hooda, as she prepares a henna paste and paints intricate designs on the hands and feet of a bride-to-be, while the bride’s friends sing humorous songs mocking the groom and the future in-laws.
Sadobabies: Runaways in San Francisco
A 1988 8mm video documentary about the street children of San Francisco. The video documents the expressive traditions of a group of young runaways who formed an alternative family in an abandoned high school building near Golden Gate Park. Shot in an urban setting with a “one-person crew,” Sadobabies demonstrates small-format, low-budget production.
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Going to coffee can result in getting a lot of work done quickly. Not just because I become caffine-charged. Because I meet folks that I need to talk with. Today as I was wondering how to get the mini-conference and discussions about the documentary Occupation: Dreamland going I ran into two of the people that are essential to making that a success.
Briefly about Occupation: Dreamland. It’s a soldier-focused documentary about men in the 82nd Airborne in Iraq.
Occupation: Dreamland is an unflinchingly candid portrait of a squad of American soldiers deployed in the doomed Iraqi city of Falluja during the winter of 2004. A tense and grimly humorous study of the soldiers unfolds as they patrol an environment of low-intensity conflict creeping steadily towards catastrophe. Through the squad’s activities Occupation: Dreamland provides a vital glimpse into the last days of Falluja. The film documents the city’s waning stability before a final series of military assaults began in the spring of 2004 that effectively destroyed it.
Occupation: Dreamland chronicles the escalating tension between its two main characters: the squad and the city. Beholden as they are to differing languages and worldviews the two antagonists collide repeatedly. A distinct sense of unease grows as the chain of misunderstanding and distrust tightens. Daylight patrols on bustling downtown streets turn from casual conversation to brief, confusing firefights while nighttime raids reveal a local populace caught in the middle. The narrative follows a downward spiral of civil destabilization and personal frustration, borne by individuals trapped on both sides.
Filmmakers Garrett Scott and Ian Olds were given access to all operations of the Army’s 82nd Airborne. They lived with the unit 24/7, giving voice to soldiers held under a strict code of authority as they cope with an ambiguous, often lethal environment. The result is a revealing, sometimes surprising look at Army life, operations and the complexity of American war in the 21st century.
First, I ran into Bill Balthrop who is just done being Chairman of Communication Studies and is a specialist in rhetoric and cultural practice. Bill and I will be co-sponsors of the mini-conference. He knows more about all the issues than I ever will and others in his department like Cori Dauber (especially) will make a big difference in the quality of what we can set up. Full steam ahead here!
Next, I ran into Tom Rankin who is director of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke. We have a couple of Tom’s films online as part of the Folkstreams.net project. Tom’s Center was just involved in an NPR production called “Married to the Military.” Obviously we want to work together on the mini-conference.
Ole friend and culture hacker Mark Hosler writes to promote his new anti-commercial Negativland project called “No Business.” Please buy it, he says.
The No Business promotion material reads:
“NO BUSINESS” is not only a term Negativland’s accountant can identify with, but also a tenaciously pure attempt to make new music out of old, or to make old music new, whatever the critics decide this dubious case may be. Critically acclaimed by those same critics in Newsweek, NY Times, Washington Post, Urb, Spin, Blender, Rolling Stone, etc., and with their work now being taught in college courses nation wide, “NO BUSINESS” may be a race with Walt Dizzy to commit legal suicide, or it may be the most thoughtful novelty record you’ve ever heard. But either way, Negativland passes through your consciousness once again, this time with nothing original at all!
“NO BUSINESS” is all about stealing music, file-sharing, the supposed collapse of the music industry and a nice piece of pie. Taking famous and not so famous music from the whole array of show business, Negativland recomposes it all to make a project of thoroughly un-original music and dialog they hope to copyright themselves.
“NO BUSINESS” is in a deluxe 5 x 11 inch die cut sleeve that comes with a laff-a-minute CD tribute to stealing and jamming popular culture, and a 56 page essay about the cultural public domain which isn’t one bit funny, just for contrast. And then, just when you’re getting all serious, there’s a trademarked Copyright Whoopee Cushion included in every package, as well as a “Universally Computer Compatible Video Short~A.” This video, which uses one of Negativland’s old chestnuts of criminal music, “Gimme The Mermaid,” was made working with a now former Disney animator using Disney’s own computers to create it and render it after hours when they weren’t looking!
So, if you are a copyright lawyer, you’ll want to hear this, see this and read this as soon as possible. If you have no respect for music or the music industry, this will confirm your suspicions. Whether you’re going to a party or appearing in court for stealing music, take NO BUSINESS along for the laughs and stitches that will keep them staring at the speakers till it’s over.
Mark is interviewed at the Onion A/V club and will be in NYC celebrating 25 years of Negativland September 9 through October 22 at the Giagantic Art Space
Last night we drove over to Raleigh to hear Orson Scott Card at the Quail Ridge Bookstore. OSC is Tucker’s favorite author, of the moment anyway, and Quail Ridge is one of our favorite bookstores.
OSC is beginning a tour to promote his new book, Magic Street, which features a cast of entirely African-American characters as well as an homage to Midsummer Night’s Dream (he says).
First off, OSC announces that he will not read from the book because, in part, the audiobook version, which is not yet listed for sale, does a much better job than he could possibly do. Instead he will answer questions from the audience. He’s got several amusing answers in the can and as a guy who started as an actor and playwright in Utah, he can make the answers seem fresh and even improvised.
Several newsy items are announced. His extremely popular Ender’s Game is being made into a movie. The announcement that the guy writing the screenplay would be the same guy who wrote Troy was greeted by a level of disappointment that OSC obviously didn’t anticipate. [the Internet Movie Database lists Troy screenwright David Benioff not as the writer, but as the executive producer. Several others including OSC are listed as writers. The director of Troy, Wolfgang Petersen, is listed as the director for Ender’s]. OSC explained in various ways what Troy is a fine movie and how it shows how well Benioff and Petersen will understand and do a good job of Ender’s Game. At any rate, the movie isn’t due out til 2007.
In the meantime, OSC thinks that Magic Street might make it out as a movie first. According to him, Queen Latifah [warning Mama and Papas cover playing here] is looking at Magic Street. OSC even wrote one character with Latifah in mind after having had a conversation with her. He is very optimistic that Magic Street will be a movie and went on a bit about that.
He also had a lot to say about what a deal it was to write about/as black characters. Then true to OSC, and other writers, immediately said it wasn’t such a big deal. He did a lot of research, but then he really only talked intently to friends who are from the African-American culture.
OSC gives advice about writing that is teaching writing or not teaching writing. Mostly he rants about the Scarlet Letter for a while. His attitude toward the Scarlet Letter approaches that of a Scientologist’s toward psychiatry although it seems to be more for entertainment purposes. His approach to teaching writing too is highly varied and contradictory. First allow a lot of free writing. Don’t enforce rules. Then teach grammar and spelling. No Great Books. But he needed Great Books to be the writer he is. To be fair to OSC, he has age dependent contingencies for these suggestions. And he’s written a few books on how to write in his time.
Speaking of learning to write. About half the audience came over from the Duke Creative Writer’s Workshop in a big bus. The shoppers were given a choice of going to a Durham Bull’s baseball game or coming to a bookstore to hear OSC. Lots came. They were accompanied by their teachers, fellow WW grads Mimi Herman and Floyd Harris.
Much amusing OSC patter continued for about an hour then the signing began. Long lines with happy people.
A Winer and likely a diner as well. Dave Winer came up US 17 through far Eastern NC. His car wears the Cackalacky sticker I sent him a while back. His pictures, including one of the sticker, are here.
Sally, Tucker and I went out to the Fourth of July at the Eno early hoping to beat the heat. Most of the day was cooler, in the 80s, and a little overcast. None of the promised or threatened thunder storms scattered themselves our way luckily. Mostly we wandered round the booths. We did catch the last of the Malpass Family and all of the Polecat Creek session on the Meadow Stage. The Cats sing old school country — Carter Family, Louvin Brothers, etc and sound pretty good. It was getting hot by then.
We had a diverse lunch. Tucker eating a Polish sausage. Sally having fried veggies and dip. And I had Jamacian jerk chicken.
Representative David Price read the Declaration of Independence and the crowd responded with applause at appropriate phrases.
For an election year, the selection of local politicians on stage was sparse. Sally was the sole member of the Chapel Hill Town Council to appear. Everyone from Carrboro must have been celebrating there. Hillsborough was represented by Mike Gering who is I believe up for election this fall.
BBC‘s Radio 3 is offering free downloads of the Beethoven Symphonies aired there. The trick is that you can only get them for a limited time — one week after the on-air broadcast. That means that I missed 1 – 5, but I did get 6 – 9. Hurry and get ’em!
Atlantic-striding James Boyle opines in the current Financial Times about European software patents. As usual, Boyle is clear and concise on complex issues wittily cutting to the chase and in some cases cutting close to the bone.
European geekdom is in a frenzy. The cause? A key vote on a proposed Software Patent Directive is due to be held in the European Parliament on July 6th.
Except, depending on whom you listen to, the directive is not really about software patents at all. Some argue that as its official name indicates, it is only about “computer implemented inventions.†They claim it will only cover systems that use software to control something in the external world, traffic lights say, but not software that just runs to be.. well.. software, such as an internet browser or a spread sheet program.
Opponents strongly disagree. They claim the directive not only allows expansive “pure†software patents, it also might allow for the toxic US innovation of “business method patents.†If a normal patent covers a new design for a corkscrew or a way of cooking burgers, a business method patent covers the idea of opening a bottle of wine, or of selling fast food.
[…]
Reasons to fear food are presented in Weight Watchers Recipe cards from 1974 as discovered and annotated by Wendy McClure (author of “I am not the New Me” and blogger at Poundy )
I am at the unfortunate age at which this is a part of my history I can still remember. Hopefully I will grow out of that. Molded food haunts my dreams. That is food that has been pressed into molds, but food that is covered with mold comes in occassionally as well. I have spent most of my life as a thin person.
Michael Taeckens of Algonquin Books wants me to point out that Wendy will be reading from and signing her book in Durham at The Regulator on Friday, july 8th, at 7:00pm.
The Philip K Dick Android had a few things to say when Sally and I spoke with him last week at NextFest.
First, Dick uses some deep structure parsing to get the sense of what he is being asked (thanks Noam Chomsky for inventing this).
From that, Dick can choose from some canned answers. Sample: What is your favorite color? PKDA: Green.
Or he can, drawing on the old ELIZA software, enter into a Rogerian interview. Example: What do you think about the President? PKDA: Which President do you have in mind?
But third, Dick can draw on a large database constructed from the entire corpus of his work. Using latent syntactic analysis, PKDA can create entirely new and unique phrases and answers that sound very very Philip K Dick.
Example: Phil, Where are we now? PKDA: [looking around the room] We appear to be my living room. [pause] It could be a simulacrum though. [pause] But why would the authorities bother?
Now that is the real Dick!
- iTunes now supports podcasts and looks to be doing a great job so far. So nice to get Le Show and to see how iTunes handles multiple enclosures, like the many songs on the Roger McGuinn Folk Den Project.
- It’s finally rainy and cool. Best appreciated if you, like me, were in Chicago during the heatwave last week.
What do Frank Lloyd Wright, Ernest Hemingway and Edgar Rice Burroughs have in common?
They all lived in Oak Park, Il in the early 1900s. Burroughs from 1914 – 1919. Wright from 1889 – 1909. And Hemmingway from his birth (1899) – 1919.
I was trying to imagine the kind of place that could hold these three men at three very different times in their lives almost contemporaniously. What would the child, Ernie, think of his odd neighbor up the street, Mr Wright. Did he read the stories that Mr Burroughs was beginning to publish as his Trazan series?
I was trying to think of all that as we moved around the small town on yesterday in one of the hotter heatwaves to hit Illinois in a while. We visited the Wright house and studio and saw a number of his houses. We even took in the Gay Pride Day service at the Unity Temple (designed by Wright and considered one of his great works). The original prayer for the day which called us to be thankful for the warming days of summer was wisely dropped and another prayer about inclusiveness was added.
Later that night we had drinks back in Chicago in the John Hancock Building’s Signature Lounge (96th floor) with Adam Galinsky, the son of our neighbors.
Next we were up at 4 am (CDT) to go catch our flight back to the much cooler North Carolina.
Move over Asimo, Hubo is more human and less of a puppet and more of a robot. The developer, Dr. Jun-ho Oh of the Korean Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, says that Hubo has three big advantages over other robots.
First Hubo is Korean.
Second Hubo has five fingers that can work independently.
Third Hubo has no backpack or other restrictions.
My fourth would be that Hubo is motivated by “artistic rather than purely engineering concerns.”
There are other differences. Hubo took only 2 years to complete while Asimo took nearly 15. Hubo cost about $1 million (US$) to build while Asimo cost over $15 million. The Hubo team was a small quick team of only about 5 developers (says Oh).
When we were at the NextFest preview, Hubo was locked up in customs in Anchorage. So we went back specifically to see him in “person” Hubo has very fluid movements and does an amusing version of Korean Tai Chi. He does have trouble walking on soft surfaces tho.
The most promising and delightful development at NextFest was the interchange between David Hanson and Dr. Oh. David is already conspiring with Oh to add a Philip K Dick like pliable face and AI to Hubo. Since, according to Hanson, the PKDA (Philip K Dick Andriod) only requires some AA batteries to power it, the face and brain could drop right on Hubo with not too much reengineering.
Staying in the Cosmos Club during our trip to DC for the Computerworld Awards was a kind of special (and perhaps out-of-time) experience for us. But it was something else for Republican conman Jack Abramoff. During the Senate hearings into his defrauding of various Indian tribes (and others), email between Abramoff and a conservative religious leader turned to awards and to the Cosmos Club as the Washington Post reports:
“I hate to ask you for your help with something so silly but I’ve been nominated for membership in the Cosmos Club, which is a very distinguished club in Washington, DC, comprised of Nobel Prize winners, etc.,” Abramoff wrote. “Problem for me is that most prospective members have received awards and I have received none. I was wondering if you thought it possible that I could put that I have received an award from Toward Tradition with a sufficiently academic title, perhaps something like Scholar of Talmudic Studies?”
There were titters in the audience as Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.) read aloud the e-mail, then outright laughter as he continued reading: “Indeed, it would be even better if it were possible that I received these in years past, if you know what I mean.”
The rabbi, conservative radio host Daniel Lapin, gave his blessing. “I just need to know what needs to be produced,” he wrote. “Letters? Plaques?”
“The point of all of this,” Dorgan said, “is there’s a lot of deception going on.”
Sadly Abramoff sounds like the three friends — lion, scarecrow and tinman — who visit the Wizard of Oz and leave changed forever by their awards — medal, certificate and heart. The difference is of course that the three friends had shown that they were brave, intelligent and compassionate during their trials and adventures. Abramoff does not.
A follow-up email from Abramoff (not in the Post but from Seattle Post Intelligence) shows a more desperate and more resourceful Abramoff:
The next day, Abramoff to Lapin: “Probably just a few clever titles of awards, dates and that’s it. As long as you can be the person to verify them (or we can have someone else verify one and you the other), we should be set. Do you have any creative titles or should I dip into my bag of tricks?”
No one has reported whether Abramoff was admitted to the Cosmos Club or not.
Last night we took in a great Second City etc show “From Fear to Eternity” (thanks for the great suggestion Fred). This and the note from WillR on the post below reminded me of some of the oddities that I saw on Navy Pier on Thursday.
The early Second City folks did a diner skit about a Chicago eatery called the Billy Goat Tavern (or locally BGT). The BGT still exists was WillR describes it, but there is also a BGT out on Navy Pier that is tamed down and living off its notoriety. The awning reads “cheezeborger. cheezeborger. chips … no fries” It’s hardly the greasy burger burner that Belushi and Aykroyd visited while working at Second City. There are now two other BGTs in Chicagi besides the original and the Navy Pier versions.
A similar fate has struck what was once Chicago’s best jazz club. I heard Dizzy Gillespie play Joe Segal’s in the Blackstone Hotel some years back. A few years later, I made it a point to stay at the Blackstone and to go to Joe’s smokey and authentic and acousticly wonderful room again. Since then the Blackstone was bought by the Transcendental Meditation folks who kicked out smoking, drinking and jazz as they remodeled the hotel. Joe went looking for a home and found one up on Rush Ave (a name that would surely have been appreciated by some of the talent that played the original Joe’s). But there is also a tamed Joe’s called Joe’s Bebop Cafe and Jazz Emporium — out on Navy Pier.
But the domestication of the Hog Butcher to the World is even more easily seen when you take a walk down the Miracle Mile. Yes, it’s a friendly shopping district full of the best stores — the best stores found in any upscale mall. Try looking for something unique to Chicago and you’ll see what I mean. The restaurants are even parts of chains. We did find some local places tucked away and with the help of you folks who gave us some great suggestions — like last night’s late dinner at Vong’s Thai Kitchen (thanks for that suggestion Scott).
Chicago knows how to put on good faces. I’ve been impressed about how faces are used by art and technology working together at least three times in the past 24 hours.
First, the great and somewhat eerie Philip K Dick robot whose facial movements were incredibly real. But wait there’s more. Dick also scanned to room for faces and locked in on each one until he could recognize the person speaking to him.
Second, the two 50 foot Crown Fountains (and on a day like today the Crown Wading Pool and Shower). These are constructed of glass blocks with a metal structure inside. Water runs down the blocks on three sides (most of the time). The side of the towers that face each other are screens for internally projected videos. These videos are the faces of various Chicagoans who cast their 50 foot tall visage toward each other across the small splashing bathers. They blink occassionally. The move their lips a bit. Then they both suck in a little and suddenly a stream of water sprays out of their mouths on to the waders. Suddenly the blocks go blank and water cascades down from the top of the towers.
Third, at the Art Institute of Chicago down in the Children’s section near the wonderful miniature the Thorne Rooms (thanks to telling us about them Max). Adobe Aftereffects are put to good use. They run a series of morphs across over 100+ images of faces in all styles from the Art Institutes collection. You see a Mayan head morph into an early American portrait into a Cubist face study into an African mask into a Walker Evans photograph into … What a great way to see who the various visions of artists related to the subject of the human face! The entire run is about 15 minutes
Last night Sally and I sat down for a chat with Philip K Dick. Whilst it was no a seance, it was closer to that than to say Mark Twain Tonight. The Philip K Dick robot from Hanson Robotics (and others) features a very flexible and eeriely realistic face which seeks out people in the room (using facial recognition) to establish eye contact with them. He shutters and blinks as he thinks about how to answer your questions. Behind that blinking and shuttering is a program using latent symantic analysis (and indexing) to mine the entire works of Dick. [more after I get back]
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