It has been a hectic month so far, for a variety of reasons, and I'm glad that I deferred/diverted my plans for National Novel Writing Month this year. Kudos to all of you who are participating, and particularly to those of you in the Weblit community who are simultaneously keeping up with serialized writing. This is quite frankly an amazing achievement!
Several months back, I invested some time (okay, a weekend) in developing a framework for what I call "Instant Metafiction" - which I was planning to use for NaNoWriMo this year. I have mentioned this before, but, because I want to capture the project properly before moving on (and eventually taking it to the next level), I am going to describe it in a fair detail here.
The idea was to make it possible to create a finished product resembling metafictional works inspired by David Foster Wallace's Infinite Jest and Mark Danielowski's House of Leaves, which are characterized by narratorial insertions like footnotes, endnotes and sidebars. To do this, I would use a source document conforming to the DocBook document specification, typically used for technical manuals, which provides ample opportunity for annotation.
Using this approach, I could then use the standard transform package to generate a final metatext as an ePub version, an XHTML version, or a PDF version from the same source. Using DocBook would facilitate two other things, scheduling and crowdsourcing.
Scheduling is handled by using Blogger as a backend. Like many 'blogging platforms, Blogger allows you to date a post in the future. When the day arrives, the post is published. Conveniently, Blogger also uses labels, so I was able to label all posts I wanted to serialize with the same label. With a handful of lines of XQuery hosted on Google AppSpot (using Java and Saxon 8 to run the XQuery), I could now take the Atom syndication from Blogger, and convert it into DocBook.
Crowdsourcing is also handled by Blogger. Like any 'blogging platform, Blogger allows comments, which are then published in a separate syndication. A small modification to the XQuery used to extract the main Atom feed allowed any comments authored by me to be added to the DocBook source as a sidebar element (I had by this point chosen to focus on sidebars instead of endnotes for sylistic reasons).
By ignoring any other comments, the final metatext remains my own; however, if someone comments on a chapter, I can comment back with a response. And this response gets integrated into the metanarrative as a sidebar. In this way, as people read the narrative, the story is deepened. I am not sure how successful this would actually be, but it seemed like fun, and the tools are all free.
Beyond a weekend project using free technology, this approach offers several advantages - using an existing CMS can be limiting, as it is hard to extend its functionality unless you are familiar with its plugin hooks, and you are hosting your own deployment. This was not something that appealed to me. To my mind, integrated crowdsourcing may be a very important facet for serialized online literature, as it encourages deeper engagement, and it breaks down the barrier between author and audience. And it is something print literature just cannot do.
I would be happy to discuss any of the ideas and approaches described above further. This is definitely a project I will revisit in the near future, when time is more plentiful. I am just looking for a good excuse to do so.
Sunday, November 08, 2009
Friday, November 06, 2009
Memory and Games: Book as Single Page Application
From time to time I find myself finding a use for Jeremy Ruston's TiddlyWiki. TiddlyWiki is what has been dubbed a "single page application" or SPA, because what it really amounts to is an HTML page, complete with a JavaScript active layer which allows one to add, edit, show, hide and reorder content layers. When you have made the desired changes to your TiddlyWiki, you use your browser to save the entire file. I have found TiddlyWiki to be especially useful for creating information on the go using a USB device.
One of the things I appreciate about my workplace is the "leave one; take one" bookshelf, where recently I discovered a copy of an old Steve Jackson game book called "The Crown of Kings" - sort of like a Choose Your Own Adventure book, except you roll dice a lot, and you keep track of your Stamina and Skill statistics; you fight monsters as you explore. I believe there were four or five books in the series, and you could carry your "character" over from one to the next. The sort of thing you couldn't publish as a book in this day and age, because this sort of technogy has been subsumed by FaceBook and iPhone applications.
But this book does something that completely blew me away, that I have never really seen in a web application: it relied on memory. See, when you start the game, you consult an appendix which contains all of the various spells you can learn, indexed by a three letter code, along with Stamina cost and effect. At various points in the story, you are given a choice of several three-letter spell codes you can cast. You select a spell by its code, and go to the appropriate page, where you pay the cost and the resulting effect takes place.
But the trick is this - you can only look at the appendix one time, at the beginning of your adventure. And if you forget what all the spells do, you can injure yourself, or do something foolish. The game does not actually test your ability to be a warrior in real life, but it does test your problem-solving ability, and it tests your real life ability to remember important details.
Well, any book can be like this. If a book forces me to flip around, I need to remember what page I was on, in order to return to it. This is a disadvantage of a print book, of course. Book applications remember things for us. Browsers bookmark for us. We do not need to remember as much. I honestly do not think this makes either medium beter, just different.
But this got me thinking about how different forms of memory work. Imagine I can add annotations to a book I am reading. I get a pencil and I scribble notes in a margin. Over the years, these fade, or I lend the book to someone else, lose it on the bus and buy a different edition, which has been annotated by someone else.
Now imagine I can add annotations to an online book. I can add semantic tags to deepen the meaning and store the details of these tags in a data store for my next reading. I can share this information with other people, adding to the meaning of the book as a whole, without actually changing the book's narrative. If I am an author of the book, I can even retag the book to change the book's narrative.
But what if I add semantic data to the book that is purely transient... it evaporates as soon as I close the book, but it persists as long as I have the book open, as I flip through the chapters. How would that be?
I imagine something slightly more interactive than your average book, but less interactive than the simplest of video games. Perhaps a detective story, where you are the detective, and as you add semantic data to the narrative, the narrative reveals itself in more depth. And then, what if two people could arrange to read the same book, at the same time, so that the narrative evolved along two separate axes?
This would be a book as a single page application.
One of the things I appreciate about my workplace is the "leave one; take one" bookshelf, where recently I discovered a copy of an old Steve Jackson game book called "The Crown of Kings" - sort of like a Choose Your Own Adventure book, except you roll dice a lot, and you keep track of your Stamina and Skill statistics; you fight monsters as you explore. I believe there were four or five books in the series, and you could carry your "character" over from one to the next. The sort of thing you couldn't publish as a book in this day and age, because this sort of technogy has been subsumed by FaceBook and iPhone applications.
But this book does something that completely blew me away, that I have never really seen in a web application: it relied on memory. See, when you start the game, you consult an appendix which contains all of the various spells you can learn, indexed by a three letter code, along with Stamina cost and effect. At various points in the story, you are given a choice of several three-letter spell codes you can cast. You select a spell by its code, and go to the appropriate page, where you pay the cost and the resulting effect takes place.
But the trick is this - you can only look at the appendix one time, at the beginning of your adventure. And if you forget what all the spells do, you can injure yourself, or do something foolish. The game does not actually test your ability to be a warrior in real life, but it does test your problem-solving ability, and it tests your real life ability to remember important details.
Well, any book can be like this. If a book forces me to flip around, I need to remember what page I was on, in order to return to it. This is a disadvantage of a print book, of course. Book applications remember things for us. Browsers bookmark for us. We do not need to remember as much. I honestly do not think this makes either medium beter, just different.
But this got me thinking about how different forms of memory work. Imagine I can add annotations to a book I am reading. I get a pencil and I scribble notes in a margin. Over the years, these fade, or I lend the book to someone else, lose it on the bus and buy a different edition, which has been annotated by someone else.
Now imagine I can add annotations to an online book. I can add semantic tags to deepen the meaning and store the details of these tags in a data store for my next reading. I can share this information with other people, adding to the meaning of the book as a whole, without actually changing the book's narrative. If I am an author of the book, I can even retag the book to change the book's narrative.
But what if I add semantic data to the book that is purely transient... it evaporates as soon as I close the book, but it persists as long as I have the book open, as I flip through the chapters. How would that be?
I imagine something slightly more interactive than your average book, but less interactive than the simplest of video games. Perhaps a detective story, where you are the detective, and as you add semantic data to the narrative, the narrative reveals itself in more depth. And then, what if two people could arrange to read the same book, at the same time, so that the narrative evolved along two separate axes?
This would be a book as a single page application.
Thursday, November 05, 2009
Inspirations: these are our stories
I have mentioned before that being a CBC lovin' Canadian, it just wouldn't be Christmas for me without the Vinyl Cafe. When I lived in the States, NPR and the Prairie Home Companion filled the same need. Radio plays and this kind of entertainment fill our need for oral history. These are our stories.
But I also like stories about swords and sorceresses, steampunks and spaceships. I grew up with the original Hitchhiker's Guide radio show, before it was a book or a PBS marathon, and any number of terrifying radio plays about criminals and evil twins, which I probably should not have been listening to. These are also our stories.
Edit: this post was unfinished... I got too creeped out thinking about the story about the guy who shares his heart with his evil unborn twin, and... umm...
But I also like stories about swords and sorceresses, steampunks and spaceships. I grew up with the original Hitchhiker's Guide radio show, before it was a book or a PBS marathon, and any number of terrifying radio plays about criminals and evil twins, which I probably should not have been listening to. These are also our stories.
Edit: this post was unfinished... I got too creeped out thinking about the story about the guy who shares his heart with his evil unborn twin, and... umm...
Wednesday, November 04, 2009
NaNoWriMo and Weblit-tletown: What's in a Name?
I am so happy for everyone enjoying National Novel Writing Month this year! I wish I could take part, but I rebelled against it due to time constraints: I wish I had more. Instead, I wrote an open letter to the weblit community, asking them/you to follow up NaNoWriMo this year with a contribution to an Audio Collection of Holiday Weblit. The two projects are very different, see. NaNaWriMo encourages a "Don't look back until you are finished, lest your writing turn to a pillar of salt" attitude, whereas the Audio Holiday Weblit project encourages a "tell an entertaining story, but make it short and sweet" attitude.
I am so prepared to be shocked and blown away by the weblit community with both of these projects. As I said before, if you read it out loud, they will listen, and I honestly believe this. I also believe in things like Internet Archive, Creative Commons, and Huffman Coding, though I have yet to see any of these in real life. Internet Archive, for instance, lends any project credibility, because it allows you to turn a collection of things into an artifact, just like that. Not great for distribution, mind you, but great for credibility.
What's in a name? I have mentioned that I am taken with the name #weblit-tletown (as in "of Bethlehem"), because it is festive and vocal. Is this a sucky name? You tell me. There is a great discussion taking place at weblit.us at this very moment about why people use pseudonyms when they write. Many good reasons. This weekend, I am going to compile and publish a list of stakeholders (ie people who plan to contribute a recording) - please use whatever name you choose, and correct me if I slip up. It can be confusing. Apologies in advance!
I am so prepared to be shocked and blown away by the weblit community with both of these projects. As I said before, if you read it out loud, they will listen, and I honestly believe this. I also believe in things like Internet Archive, Creative Commons, and Huffman Coding, though I have yet to see any of these in real life. Internet Archive, for instance, lends any project credibility, because it allows you to turn a collection of things into an artifact, just like that. Not great for distribution, mind you, but great for credibility.
What's in a name? I have mentioned that I am taken with the name #weblit-tletown (as in "of Bethlehem"), because it is festive and vocal. Is this a sucky name? You tell me. There is a great discussion taking place at weblit.us at this very moment about why people use pseudonyms when they write. Many good reasons. This weekend, I am going to compile and publish a list of stakeholders (ie people who plan to contribute a recording) - please use whatever name you choose, and correct me if I slip up. It can be confusing. Apologies in advance!
Tuesday, November 03, 2009
Audio Fiction Content Guidelines
Okay, so here's the story so far...
Hallowe'en came and went, and I was frustrated that while I had time to discover some great seasonal weblit fiction, I did not have time to read it, so I posted an open letter to the weblit community requesting that, this winter, we collect our holiday stories into an audio collection of some sort and distribute it, so cool people can listen to your voices over the holidays and share them with the people they care about.
My plan is to write a post each night in November, breaking the project down into various topics in order to facilitate a discourse, and I hope that by the end of the month, we will have reached consensus about all the important points of the project, and we can roll the November energy into December and have something available for download mid month. This is entirely doable, because you are all talented people, and because I believe this is a valuable thing that needs to be done.
I want to table two issues, then finish with a few suggested guidelines about content.
1) Writing this out every night is meant to build momentum, but also, I want to organize like an agile scrum team (google as necessary). Everything I have seen of the weblit community demonstrates that you work individually, but also through constant collaboration. With this in mind, PLEASE leave comments whenever and wherever you like. I will find them. Then, each Sunday in November, I will assemble and report progress. This week, for instance, I will compile a list of involved parties.
2) The next step is to reach out to the reader community. One of the dangers with collaboration is that we create walled gardens and mutual admiration clubs. Writer. Reader. When you read one of your stories out loud, you become a reader.
Content Guidelines
Roughly speaking, 1000 words is about 10 minutes read aloud. Any longer than this and we run the risk of losing audience attention. Short and snappy is going to be our best approach. 15 minutes at the very most.
Audience appropriate means no swearing, rough language or sexual content, and violence should be limited to snowballs and abusive ghosts. There is no need to censor ourselves, but there is also no need to place a limit on our audience. Plus, holiday, festive etc.
I will repeat that people excel at downloading mp3s, but, semantically, like pdfs and epubs, audio files are walled gardens - they don't let meaning out - so I think we need to provide the source text of our stories to make the whole package searchable. This could be as simple as a supplemental RSS or Atom stream, or all sorts of Dublin Core and Open Provenance. This will be determined.
And of course, these are just some opinions that I am trying to flesh out. When all is said and done, we will put our voices together and we will see what happens. Please add your two cents.
Hallowe'en came and went, and I was frustrated that while I had time to discover some great seasonal weblit fiction, I did not have time to read it, so I posted an open letter to the weblit community requesting that, this winter, we collect our holiday stories into an audio collection of some sort and distribute it, so cool people can listen to your voices over the holidays and share them with the people they care about.
My plan is to write a post each night in November, breaking the project down into various topics in order to facilitate a discourse, and I hope that by the end of the month, we will have reached consensus about all the important points of the project, and we can roll the November energy into December and have something available for download mid month. This is entirely doable, because you are all talented people, and because I believe this is a valuable thing that needs to be done.
I want to table two issues, then finish with a few suggested guidelines about content.
1) Writing this out every night is meant to build momentum, but also, I want to organize like an agile scrum team (google as necessary). Everything I have seen of the weblit community demonstrates that you work individually, but also through constant collaboration. With this in mind, PLEASE leave comments whenever and wherever you like. I will find them. Then, each Sunday in November, I will assemble and report progress. This week, for instance, I will compile a list of involved parties.
2) The next step is to reach out to the reader community. One of the dangers with collaboration is that we create walled gardens and mutual admiration clubs. Writer. Reader. When you read one of your stories out loud, you become a reader.
Content Guidelines
Roughly speaking, 1000 words is about 10 minutes read aloud. Any longer than this and we run the risk of losing audience attention. Short and snappy is going to be our best approach. 15 minutes at the very most.
Audience appropriate means no swearing, rough language or sexual content, and violence should be limited to snowballs and abusive ghosts. There is no need to censor ourselves, but there is also no need to place a limit on our audience. Plus, holiday, festive etc.
I will repeat that people excel at downloading mp3s, but, semantically, like pdfs and epubs, audio files are walled gardens - they don't let meaning out - so I think we need to provide the source text of our stories to make the whole package searchable. This could be as simple as a supplemental RSS or Atom stream, or all sorts of Dublin Core and Open Provenance. This will be determined.
And of course, these are just some opinions that I am trying to flesh out. When all is said and done, we will put our voices together and we will see what happens. Please add your two cents.
Monday, November 02, 2009
Is Audacity Enough?
I am going to keep this short, cover some technical issues, and attempt to further open a dialog. For more background on what I am talking about, please refer to the previous post - suffice it to say that I want to try and give weblit a voice this holiday season, and I am going to post each night this November in order to sketch out a plan of how we might be able to do it. And please, please comment... it will only encourage me.
1) Do you have experience with grass roots recording? In the past, I have recorded using a cheap microphone and Audacity, a freely available tool which allows you to record, edit and splice mp3s. It is nothing too fancy, but it works, it is cross-platform, and it is available under a GNU GPL license. Ideally, I am thinking that results will be best if everyone involved in a project like this uses the same tools. Please leave a comment if you can recommend a different recording tool, but remember, keep it simple and freely available. I would love to recommend a tool with built in audio processing like compression and reverb, so that we all sound great, but, I don't have much experience in this area. If you do, please speak up.
2) Distribution and contribution: torrent or stream or podcast, or some combination of these... part of the reasoning behind using mp3 as opposed to ePub or PDF is that people already know how to distribute mp3s. People excel at distributing mp3s. I am thinking a torrent would be ideal, but again, speak up. Many options are available. This will most likely become a separate post, but I want to raise the question here. As far as contribution goes, obviously, there is the contribution that the weblit community would be making; in addition, however, I would love to allow donations as long as these 1) are earmarked exclusively for a charitable organization chosen by consensus, and 2) all money raised in this fashion is accounted for transparently. Not necessary, but it would be great to be able to demonstrate value in this way.
3) Length: I am thinking 10 minute stories would work well, and I'm not sure what this would be as a word count. Depends how fast you read, right? But a dozen contributers at 10 minutes a piece is two hours, which strikes me as a reasonable benchmark.
4) Endorsement: again, I am imagining something grassroots and community oriented, however, also something that extends beyond this community. One option would be to try to contact higher profile authors who are also friendly to the creative commons cause for guest spots. Painting with broad strokes here, but this would be one way to reach out beyond the immediate weblit community.
5) How do you define weblit? Additionally, I believe it is important to make available the source text in an appropriate format along with the audio feed, since audio is not searchable, and presents a semantic walled garden. Again, I would like to open this topic up for discussion.
6) Lastly, because I am keeping this short, what's in a name? My initial request is for weblit to share its voice, and I think this is a sufficiently engaging meme; however, code names are cool. In keeping with the holiday theme, I am kind of taken with #weblit-tletown (as in "of Bethlehem"), because it is still tagged as "weblit", contains a truly awful play on words, and as far as code names go, it is sufficiently inscrutable. Or perhaps it's just stupid, and I admit, I have a terrible sense of humour. SO, come up with something catchier.
I really believe that this is a valuable thing to be working towards, and I am prepared to develop this idea for at least the next month, and we'll see where it goes. But please, leave a comment, negative or positive. I want to hear your voice.
1) Do you have experience with grass roots recording? In the past, I have recorded using a cheap microphone and Audacity, a freely available tool which allows you to record, edit and splice mp3s. It is nothing too fancy, but it works, it is cross-platform, and it is available under a GNU GPL license. Ideally, I am thinking that results will be best if everyone involved in a project like this uses the same tools. Please leave a comment if you can recommend a different recording tool, but remember, keep it simple and freely available. I would love to recommend a tool with built in audio processing like compression and reverb, so that we all sound great, but, I don't have much experience in this area. If you do, please speak up.
2) Distribution and contribution: torrent or stream or podcast, or some combination of these... part of the reasoning behind using mp3 as opposed to ePub or PDF is that people already know how to distribute mp3s. People excel at distributing mp3s. I am thinking a torrent would be ideal, but again, speak up. Many options are available. This will most likely become a separate post, but I want to raise the question here. As far as contribution goes, obviously, there is the contribution that the weblit community would be making; in addition, however, I would love to allow donations as long as these 1) are earmarked exclusively for a charitable organization chosen by consensus, and 2) all money raised in this fashion is accounted for transparently. Not necessary, but it would be great to be able to demonstrate value in this way.
3) Length: I am thinking 10 minute stories would work well, and I'm not sure what this would be as a word count. Depends how fast you read, right? But a dozen contributers at 10 minutes a piece is two hours, which strikes me as a reasonable benchmark.
4) Endorsement: again, I am imagining something grassroots and community oriented, however, also something that extends beyond this community. One option would be to try to contact higher profile authors who are also friendly to the creative commons cause for guest spots. Painting with broad strokes here, but this would be one way to reach out beyond the immediate weblit community.
5) How do you define weblit? Additionally, I believe it is important to make available the source text in an appropriate format along with the audio feed, since audio is not searchable, and presents a semantic walled garden. Again, I would like to open this topic up for discussion.
6) Lastly, because I am keeping this short, what's in a name? My initial request is for weblit to share its voice, and I think this is a sufficiently engaging meme; however, code names are cool. In keeping with the holiday theme, I am kind of taken with #weblit-tletown (as in "of Bethlehem"), because it is still tagged as "weblit", contains a truly awful play on words, and as far as code names go, it is sufficiently inscrutable. Or perhaps it's just stupid, and I admit, I have a terrible sense of humour. SO, come up with something catchier.
I really believe that this is a valuable thing to be working towards, and I am prepared to develop this idea for at least the next month, and we'll see where it goes. But please, leave a comment, negative or positive. I want to hear your voice.
Sunday, November 01, 2009
November! Stuff! Nonsense! Weblit, let me hear your lovely voice!
I'm going to keep this short, because my plan is to write something every night of November, and I don't want to run out of de profunduses and bons mots. At least, not until December. I have written previously about my plan to cheat National Novel Writing Month by crowdsourcing metafiction, and well, yes, I still plan to do this, just not right now, as I want to focus. my attention. on other things.
And as mentioned, the crowdsourced metafiction was a cheat, while at the same time a tribute to several novels I love, notably Nicole Brossard's Mauve Desert (google it, get it, read it); which I didn't want to sully with too much nonsense.
But I'm very serious about the "Weblit I want to hear your lovely voice!" thing, so I will repeat it again, and not shut up about it until someone actually tells me to shut up about it, and so, it is this:
If you love weblit, there is at least a fairly good chance you love Hallowe'en, because, well, who doesn't? and Hallowe'en indulges the weblit spirit of DIY, of creating a persona, and of getting paid through contribution and merchandising. Possibly with candy. And if you love weblit, you probably also love to tell a story, and there have been discussions elsewhere, in a ton of different places (I'm seriously not going to link to anything this month - it's going to be NaNoLnkMo for me - just saying) about the role of online writer as storyteller, return to an oral tradition, Mikhail Bakhtin and the carnivalesque (totally use bing this time, just to shake things up a bit) and so forth.
And yet, when I twitter and yahoo! around for some SPOOKY STORIES this All Hallow's Eve, I find that I have barely enough time to read two TERRIFYING TALES, before I am called upon to adjust a scabbard and straighten a butterfly fairy's wings, and we are out the door in search of medlar confits. When what I really want to do is snag a podcast or torrent, and download an hour's worth or so of NAUSEATING NARRATIVES, which I can then listen to while I am otherwise employed as haberdasher.
So.
What I am humbly requesting that all you weblit folk do is this: grab a microphone and the appropriate technology, and record a 10 minute story which you have written for the next holiday season, ChrisKwanziKah or whatever you want to call it, in your own voice, and make it available under some sort of creative commons non-commercial license. Then we'll collect all your stories and create a torrent or live stream them.
If you read them, we will come. Laeti triumphantes! Seriously. I think this is really important.
And then when that works, we'll start thinking about next Hallowe'en.
And as mentioned, the crowdsourced metafiction was a cheat, while at the same time a tribute to several novels I love, notably Nicole Brossard's Mauve Desert (google it, get it, read it); which I didn't want to sully with too much nonsense.
But I'm very serious about the "Weblit I want to hear your lovely voice!" thing, so I will repeat it again, and not shut up about it until someone actually tells me to shut up about it, and so, it is this:
If you love weblit, there is at least a fairly good chance you love Hallowe'en, because, well, who doesn't? and Hallowe'en indulges the weblit spirit of DIY, of creating a persona, and of getting paid through contribution and merchandising. Possibly with candy. And if you love weblit, you probably also love to tell a story, and there have been discussions elsewhere, in a ton of different places (I'm seriously not going to link to anything this month - it's going to be NaNoLnkMo for me - just saying) about the role of online writer as storyteller, return to an oral tradition, Mikhail Bakhtin and the carnivalesque (totally use bing this time, just to shake things up a bit) and so forth.
And yet, when I twitter and yahoo! around for some SPOOKY STORIES this All Hallow's Eve, I find that I have barely enough time to read two TERRIFYING TALES, before I am called upon to adjust a scabbard and straighten a butterfly fairy's wings, and we are out the door in search of medlar confits. When what I really want to do is snag a podcast or torrent, and download an hour's worth or so of NAUSEATING NARRATIVES, which I can then listen to while I am otherwise employed as haberdasher.
So.
What I am humbly requesting that all you weblit folk do is this: grab a microphone and the appropriate technology, and record a 10 minute story which you have written for the next holiday season, ChrisKwanziKah or whatever you want to call it, in your own voice, and make it available under some sort of creative commons non-commercial license. Then we'll collect all your stories and create a torrent or live stream them.
If you read them, we will come. Laeti triumphantes! Seriously. I think this is really important.
And then when that works, we'll start thinking about next Hallowe'en.
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Calling all weblit-ers to the campfire...
This is going to be quick, because we are getting our costumes together, and all that. A knight and a butterfly fairy, thank you for asking. Thank you, Weblit-ers, I love all the weblit Hallowe'en fiction I have just found; but to be fair, I wish I had the time to read it all. I mean, it's Hallowe'en, and I just don't have time to Twitter or Google or Bing... so maybe I'll put on a mix tape of the "Monster Mash" or surf through channels or torrents until I can find "It's the Great Pumpkin" or something. Whatever.
And Christmas is coming up, and we need to start planning that too. And I am a Canadian, and that sort of a Canadian, so I can guarantee that, like every other Christmas, I will find myself preparing drinks or peeling potatoes or wrapping presents while listening to Stuart McClean reading "Dave Stuffs a Turkey" (okay, I'm not going to link to things, just Google if you have to).
But here is what I would like to be doing, this Christmas, or next Hallowe'en: listening to your lovely voices, Weblit-ers. Listening to your lovely voices. I think http://freeeday.wordpress.com/ is a fantastic idea, and I cannot wait, but you know what? Your voices will not be heard over the singers; but what if, what if you got out a microphone and read your stories out loud, just two stories a year, a spooky one and a jolly one, and then curated them into an easily accessible podcast? For an hour or two, while I was mixing drinks or filling bowls with candy, I could take a moment with my family, around our campfire, and share your lovely voices and stories.
And I would love that.
And Christmas is coming up, and we need to start planning that too. And I am a Canadian, and that sort of a Canadian, so I can guarantee that, like every other Christmas, I will find myself preparing drinks or peeling potatoes or wrapping presents while listening to Stuart McClean reading "Dave Stuffs a Turkey" (okay, I'm not going to link to things, just Google if you have to).
But here is what I would like to be doing, this Christmas, or next Hallowe'en: listening to your lovely voices, Weblit-ers. Listening to your lovely voices. I think http://freeeday.wordpress.com/ is a fantastic idea, and I cannot wait, but you know what? Your voices will not be heard over the singers; but what if, what if you got out a microphone and read your stories out loud, just two stories a year, a spooky one and a jolly one, and then curated them into an easily accessible podcast? For an hour or two, while I was mixing drinks or filling bowls with candy, I could take a moment with my family, around our campfire, and share your lovely voices and stories.
And I would love that.
Tuesday, September 15, 2009
#PRSuccess! @dangerbird Records: yay!
I'm very pleased with the independent music industry, and I would like to spread some of this love directly to everybody at Dangerbird Records, home of the Silversun Pickups, Bad Veins, Darker My Love... a roster of great bands.
So about a month ago, the Silversun Pickups played here in my home town, and @dangerbird, who I follow on Twitter, were giving away tickets to the show to people who sent them funny pictures. And but two days after the show, I discovered a message in my gmail *Spam Folder*, because that's where gmail likes to put direct messages coming from Twitter.
Fail.
So whatever, I was annoyed, but the show was great, no big loss. I emailed Dangerbird to apologize for any inconvenience, and those nice people responded by mailing me the SSPU vinyl back-catalogue.
Success.
And what a success! Three albums you say, but wow, Swoon on 180gm vinyl, split over two records so there is less loss of fidelity on the inner tracks. Carnavas on vinyl! The packaging is exquisite. So, thank you Dangerbird!
But a success too because I'm going to do that much more to promote their label. I'm going to pay that much more to check out other bands on their roster. And here is a big one, I'm going to retweet them like crazy.
Like I said, I'm very pleased with the independent music industry.
Check out Dangerbird's latest mixtape, containing Daytrotter sessions, Patsy Cline covers, wall-to-wall goodness. Follow them on Twitter, if that's your thing. They're nice people.
So about a month ago, the Silversun Pickups played here in my home town, and @dangerbird, who I follow on Twitter, were giving away tickets to the show to people who sent them funny pictures. And but two days after the show, I discovered a message in my gmail *Spam Folder*, because that's where gmail likes to put direct messages coming from Twitter.
Fail.
So whatever, I was annoyed, but the show was great, no big loss. I emailed Dangerbird to apologize for any inconvenience, and those nice people responded by mailing me the SSPU vinyl back-catalogue.
Success.
And what a success! Three albums you say, but wow, Swoon on 180gm vinyl, split over two records so there is less loss of fidelity on the inner tracks. Carnavas on vinyl! The packaging is exquisite. So, thank you Dangerbird!
But a success too because I'm going to do that much more to promote their label. I'm going to pay that much more to check out other bands on their roster. And here is a big one, I'm going to retweet them like crazy.
Like I said, I'm very pleased with the independent music industry.
Check out Dangerbird's latest mixtape, containing Daytrotter sessions, Patsy Cline covers, wall-to-wall goodness. Follow them on Twitter, if that's your thing. They're nice people.
Monday, September 14, 2009
Mauve Desert, ABA', Cheatsin' NaNoWrMo
Mauve Desert is one of my favourite novels, a translation of a roman(ce) by QuebeCoise author Nicole Brossard. I read Brossard's novel in translation, but the book itself is a translation, the story of a fifteen year-old girl who navigates the baroque night-roads of the desert; the story of the middle-aged academic who discovers her writing in a second-hand bookshop and translates it. The narrative is presented twice, or presented and represented. Mauve Desert is one of the most thought-provoking and beautiful books I have read, and well worth reading.
Mauve Desert follows the form of a musical sonata, follow the pattern of theme-diversion-restatement. Mathematically, this translation could be expressed as ABA'. This pattern can be found in novels by Virginia Woolf and James Joyce, as well as... well, if you start looking for this pattern, little by little, you will go insane.
A narrative that retells itself, a book that draws attention to itself, is, by definition, metafiction. And the ABA' pattern implies a more subtle pattern; once you perform a translation, you can perform it again, and again... ABA' becomes ABA'BA'' becomes ABA''BA'''...
And I intend to create such a thing. Every year, when National Novel Writing Month rolls around, I
try and I fail, primarily because of life and other things, lack of preparation and so forth. So this year, what I want to do is crowd source my attempt.
In short, I intend to create a simple narrative right here on this here sight, soliciting comments on each chapter as it is published. I will then respond to these comments as annotations to the original narrative (ie as footnotes, sidebars, endnotes and other such typographical madness), in such a way that these annotations will appear within/without/interrupting the text of the original narrative.
Are you with me so far?
When all is said and done, I will then use things like Atom, DocBook and ePub to repackage the whole mess in the form narrative-annotations-annotatednarrative. If that doesn't get me to 50,000 words, I don't know what will.
Mauve Desert follows the form of a musical sonata, follow the pattern of theme-diversion-restatement. Mathematically, this translation could be expressed as ABA'. This pattern can be found in novels by Virginia Woolf and James Joyce, as well as... well, if you start looking for this pattern, little by little, you will go insane.
A narrative that retells itself, a book that draws attention to itself, is, by definition, metafiction. And the ABA' pattern implies a more subtle pattern; once you perform a translation, you can perform it again, and again... ABA' becomes ABA'BA'' becomes ABA''BA'''...
And I intend to create such a thing. Every year, when National Novel Writing Month rolls around, I
try and I fail, primarily because of life and other things, lack of preparation and so forth. So this year, what I want to do is crowd source my attempt.
In short, I intend to create a simple narrative right here on this here sight, soliciting comments on each chapter as it is published. I will then respond to these comments as annotations to the original narrative (ie as footnotes, sidebars, endnotes and other such typographical madness), in such a way that these annotations will appear within/without/interrupting the text of the original narrative.
Are you with me so far?
When all is said and done, I will then use things like Atom, DocBook and ePub to repackage the whole mess in the form narrative-annotations-annotatednarrative. If that doesn't get me to 50,000 words, I don't know what will.
Tuesday, August 18, 2009
Thoughts on the WebFinger Protocol
This comes as a response to Dare Obasanjo's post Some Thoughts on WebFinger and Personal Web Discovery. I am not going to summarize what WebFinger does, other than to paraphrase, WebFinger allows you to associate more of your identity with your email address. Smart, right?
Dare suggests that WebFinger might be more useful in making your online identity portable, rather than for its intended usage for end users. Which I agree with. I would like to keep all of my online identity in one place, but I have to take issue with the use of an email address for any purpose other than sending and receiving email (and I admit, I use my gmail address for plenty of authentication out of necessity and convenience), because it encourages and softens people up for abuse by the password anti-pattern.
(From my comment on Dare's blog)
This what my daughter thinks about gatekeepers:
Dare suggests that WebFinger might be more useful in making your online identity portable, rather than for its intended usage for end users. Which I agree with. I would like to keep all of my online identity in one place, but I have to take issue with the use of an email address for any purpose other than sending and receiving email (and I admit, I use my gmail address for plenty of authentication out of necessity and convenience), because it encourages and softens people up for abuse by the password anti-pattern.
If there's one thing I appreciate about Facebook, LinkedIn and their kind, it's that they shield people from my email. I don't want to ever give anyone my email, because I want to be able to turf it if I need to, at which point, people can still find me on Facebook etc. But, it's true, having an uncommon name is a mixed blessing. WebFinger seems like a good idea, but it also sounds kind of like it's grooming people for the password anti-pattern. We should be telling people "Don't give away your email, don't give away your email password..."
(From my comment on Dare's blog)
This what my daughter thinks about gatekeepers:
Tuesday, August 11, 2009
The News Garden and the Wire
Full disclosure: When I created this 'blog, the name "eardrum buzz" was a catchy phrase, and there was always the possibility that I might get a bit of free publicity if electro-hipsters Wire decided to sue me over fair use of the title from one of their songs. So I am guilty also of link-baiting with the title of this post.
What if Twitter were to take the direct access they have to their own data-flow and shift focus to curation? What if Twitter presented not only currently trending topics but also mined this data further, to provide analysis of the people who trended the topic?
Facebook is acquiring FriendFeed, and I find myself agreeing almost exactly with Robert Scoble that FaceBook is just not an appropriate place to conduct public conversations, even though creating a space for conducting semi-private conversations is not such a bad thing.
I go to Facebook to catch up on current affairs in my personal sphere, such as people's birthdays I might be missing. It is a garden where I can share news with friends, but... there is no discussion. Facebook will have to offer me a great deal more in the way of current affairs in the world at large for me to check in more often than once a week.
By drawing resources away from FriendFeed, is Facebook setting its targets on Twitter? No more than it already has. Twitter and FriendFeed are both networking tools; Facebook is not.
But what if Twitter shifted away from the notion of connecting me with existing contacts? The Suggested User List is a step in this direction, though arguably, a misstep. The thing Twitter really offers me that I find nowhere else is the immediacy of trending topics. And by immediacy, I mean that by the time a topic has trended, it has developed to the point where it cannot be ignored. In this sense, immediacy describes a combination of presence and latency.
But, this still has more immediacy for me than than CNN.
So.
What if Twitter were to shift focus to curation? In other words, when a topic trends, what if Twitter told me what group of Twitterers originated the topic? I could use this information. If Twitter did this for me, I would rely on trends and the public stream more than my own personal network, because this would cut the distance between me and an ostensibly reliable source of information.
And I would follow these people.
If Twitter curated a list of the users who have consistently been involved in the early phase of trending topics, clearly, these would be people I would want to follow (if I was interested in these topics), would they not? My assumption here is that by the time a topic trends, it has become reliable. Perhaps by the time a topic trends, it has already become stale. I would argue, it has become stable.
But this would be my ideal Twitter. A public stream that brings me closer and closer to the immediacy of "What is happening, right now."
What if Twitter were to take the direct access they have to their own data-flow and shift focus to curation? What if Twitter presented not only currently trending topics but also mined this data further, to provide analysis of the people who trended the topic?
Facebook is acquiring FriendFeed, and I find myself agreeing almost exactly with Robert Scoble that FaceBook is just not an appropriate place to conduct public conversations, even though creating a space for conducting semi-private conversations is not such a bad thing.
I go to Facebook to catch up on current affairs in my personal sphere, such as people's birthdays I might be missing. It is a garden where I can share news with friends, but... there is no discussion. Facebook will have to offer me a great deal more in the way of current affairs in the world at large for me to check in more often than once a week.
By drawing resources away from FriendFeed, is Facebook setting its targets on Twitter? No more than it already has. Twitter and FriendFeed are both networking tools; Facebook is not.
But what if Twitter shifted away from the notion of connecting me with existing contacts? The Suggested User List is a step in this direction, though arguably, a misstep. The thing Twitter really offers me that I find nowhere else is the immediacy of trending topics. And by immediacy, I mean that by the time a topic has trended, it has developed to the point where it cannot be ignored. In this sense, immediacy describes a combination of presence and latency.
But, this still has more immediacy for me than than CNN.
So.
What if Twitter were to shift focus to curation? In other words, when a topic trends, what if Twitter told me what group of Twitterers originated the topic? I could use this information. If Twitter did this for me, I would rely on trends and the public stream more than my own personal network, because this would cut the distance between me and an ostensibly reliable source of information.
And I would follow these people.
If Twitter curated a list of the users who have consistently been involved in the early phase of trending topics, clearly, these would be people I would want to follow (if I was interested in these topics), would they not? My assumption here is that by the time a topic trends, it has become reliable. Perhaps by the time a topic trends, it has already become stale. I would argue, it has become stable.
But this would be my ideal Twitter. A public stream that brings me closer and closer to the immediacy of "What is happening, right now."
Friday, July 31, 2009
Links for 2009-07-31
@jayrosen_nyu: Last night, NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen twittered something that struck me as very profound:
I grew up in a household that was at times less than stable; attention has never been one of my strengths, other than the occasional attention I have paid in the past to things like computers and Rubik's Cubes. Hell, many of the important things I have learned in life were learned from Sesame Street, and I take great enjoyment now from sitting down with my son and learning about the world of polar bears and four-winged dinosaurs from Nova. I can't imagine a world without this influence. Marshall McLuhan described the television as being like a "bomb in the classroom", and I believe this to be apt on multiple levels.
In this week's "Rebooting the News" podcast with Dave Winer, Jay discusses his inspiration for the week, Marshall McLuhan. "The subject may require you to go very far afield," he comments on McLuhan. "Marshall McLuhan was willing to see the destruction of the world he preferred, which was that of the literate man..."
@davewiner: Dave Winer created a prototype for what has become the blogosphere, and has said some pretty profound things also. What struck a chord with me recently was the idea that, like a wire service, the internet can provide us with a "river of news" into which we can dip to keep abreast of current affairs. "Perhaps the river of news is omniscient," he wonders in last week's "Rebooting the News" podcast.
I have personally spent so much of my life dealing with the anxiety that something is happening somewhere, and that I am missing it. The twitter paradigm, for want of a better phrase, seems to be that the online world has become broad enough that if a meme needs to find you, it will circulate until it does. This is not just cold comfort.
Like journalism, the face of literature is changing, as the media through which these are transmitted are changing. If you aren't following the Rebooting the News podcast, do so. It's become a high point in my week, and I strongly recommend you start rebooting.
Marshall McLuhan steps outside his frame of reference, and Woody Allen pulls him back in.
I grew up in a chaotic household. Television ordered my attention and gave it flow. Family life couldn't. This is one reason I study media.
I grew up in a household that was at times less than stable; attention has never been one of my strengths, other than the occasional attention I have paid in the past to things like computers and Rubik's Cubes. Hell, many of the important things I have learned in life were learned from Sesame Street, and I take great enjoyment now from sitting down with my son and learning about the world of polar bears and four-winged dinosaurs from Nova. I can't imagine a world without this influence. Marshall McLuhan described the television as being like a "bomb in the classroom", and I believe this to be apt on multiple levels.
In this week's "Rebooting the News" podcast with Dave Winer, Jay discusses his inspiration for the week, Marshall McLuhan. "The subject may require you to go very far afield," he comments on McLuhan. "Marshall McLuhan was willing to see the destruction of the world he preferred, which was that of the literate man..."
@davewiner: Dave Winer created a prototype for what has become the blogosphere, and has said some pretty profound things also. What struck a chord with me recently was the idea that, like a wire service, the internet can provide us with a "river of news" into which we can dip to keep abreast of current affairs. "Perhaps the river of news is omniscient," he wonders in last week's "Rebooting the News" podcast.
I have personally spent so much of my life dealing with the anxiety that something is happening somewhere, and that I am missing it. The twitter paradigm, for want of a better phrase, seems to be that the online world has become broad enough that if a meme needs to find you, it will circulate until it does. This is not just cold comfort.
Like journalism, the face of literature is changing, as the media through which these are transmitted are changing. If you aren't following the Rebooting the News podcast, do so. It's become a high point in my week, and I strongly recommend you start rebooting.
Marshall McLuhan steps outside his frame of reference, and Woody Allen pulls him back in.
Tuesday, July 28, 2009
On the proper use of quote with html attribute values...
A very short rant.
When your HTML tags contain attributes such as "...width='10%'>", please, please, please use quotes around the value. There may come a time when somebody has to take your code and turn it into XHTML, which requires quotes; moreover, there may come a time when somebody has to take your code and generate it on the server side using JSP or ASP... which will not take kindly to that "...10%>".
So please, use quotes around your HTML attribute values. Or my son will kick you.
When your HTML tags contain attributes such as "...width='10%'>", please, please, please use quotes around the value. There may come a time when somebody has to take your code and turn it into XHTML, which requires quotes; moreover, there may come a time when somebody has to take your code and generate it on the server side using JSP or ASP... which will not take kindly to that "...10%>".
So please, use quotes around your HTML attribute values. Or my son will kick you.
Thursday, July 16, 2009
Odd-Hume
From an early age, Alex had been good at floating, at first in water, then a few feet above the ground, then higher as he learned how to channel his magical energy at the school. This, apparently, would be very useful when they hurled him, as they did, later that day, into the Teertsi Hole, where he had been floating ever since. Apparently the hurling had worked, and then the plan had gone awry.
For all he knew, however, many days had passed since they had catapulted him into the Hole. Time passed very strangely therein, and he had a vague feeling that he had missed several meals since his entrance.
"I should be hungry, though," he speculated to the void.
And well you should.
Something had answered him. Not aloud, but silently, as if speaking behind him.
"I should be very hungry," Alex tried again.
I should think so. I am.
"I am ravenous," Alex announced.
As am I, the voice responded silently.
"Oh crap! You're going to eat me now, aren't you?"
In essence, I already have.
A moment later, Alex realized that he had been conversing with the void itself.
Not to worry, however; I eat only plants. Animals disagree with me.
"You are a vegetarian void?"
Call me a... Herbivortex. Call me Odd-Hume, for that is my name. That is what the other intruders call me.
"Other intruders? The Teertsi?"
Yes. They used that name to summon me, and they use that name when they call me. Odd-Hume. It will do.
"Call you?"
To feed me. I am always hungry.
"Well, I'm pleased to make your acquaintance, Odd-Hume! I think we need to talk further."
And later that day, Alex was ejected from a tear in the sky that opened over Galvany Fields and Azure Spires, and he floated to earth, making his way swiftly to his Head Master's office as soon as he touched ground. In Head Master Peeps' office, he explained how the united peoples of the twin cities could summon the Herbivortex Odd-Hume, and feed her themselves, and they should have to pay tribute to Teerts no more.
He was fairly certain Odd-Hume was female, whatever it was, though whenever he tried to picture her, he had a flash of a giant, nebulous cow, with horns that spanned continents.
And that is how Alex of Galvany Fields, student of magic in the College of Dweomer at the 'Varsity of Azure Spires, became a hero.
For all he knew, however, many days had passed since they had catapulted him into the Hole. Time passed very strangely therein, and he had a vague feeling that he had missed several meals since his entrance.
"I should be hungry, though," he speculated to the void.
And well you should.
Something had answered him. Not aloud, but silently, as if speaking behind him.
"I should be very hungry," Alex tried again.
I should think so. I am.
"I am ravenous," Alex announced.
As am I, the voice responded silently.
"Oh crap! You're going to eat me now, aren't you?"
In essence, I already have.
A moment later, Alex realized that he had been conversing with the void itself.
Not to worry, however; I eat only plants. Animals disagree with me.
"You are a vegetarian void?"
Call me a... Herbivortex. Call me Odd-Hume, for that is my name. That is what the other intruders call me.
"Other intruders? The Teertsi?"
Yes. They used that name to summon me, and they use that name when they call me. Odd-Hume. It will do.
"Call you?"
To feed me. I am always hungry.
"Well, I'm pleased to make your acquaintance, Odd-Hume! I think we need to talk further."
And later that day, Alex was ejected from a tear in the sky that opened over Galvany Fields and Azure Spires, and he floated to earth, making his way swiftly to his Head Master's office as soon as he touched ground. In Head Master Peeps' office, he explained how the united peoples of the twin cities could summon the Herbivortex Odd-Hume, and feed her themselves, and they should have to pay tribute to Teerts no more.
He was fairly certain Odd-Hume was female, whatever it was, though whenever he tried to picture her, he had a flash of a giant, nebulous cow, with horns that spanned continents.
And that is how Alex of Galvany Fields, student of magic in the College of Dweomer at the 'Varsity of Azure Spires, became a hero.
Monday, July 13, 2009
Eight Years Later
And now, Alex understands, as best he can, the source of the cloying sound coming from the other hilltop, as he watches the Lutanists assembled behind the Starcatchers playing their foul instruments, and strung to these instruments by vibrating cords are wingbound lancers, men whose very clothing forms wide wings. By some enchantment, the cloaks worn by the lancers collect and focus the sound, so that they are lifted from the hilltop, soaring into the air at great speed. As they do so, Alex watches in horror and disgust as the proud eagles of Galvany fall to their lances.
And then the Starcatchers strike, and all hope is lost.
The star-kites they have unwound fall short of the eagles' attack, but they had never been intended as snares, leastwise, not for the eagles. An unfortunate wind has blown the kites much closer to the hilltop on which Alex stands, and, distracted from the eagles' demise, he watches in amazement and then growing alarm as the star-kites swoop down at the mages less than a stone's throw away. The kites are attracted, they must be, by the mages' magic. And whenever a kite strikes a mage, that mage falls down dead, first the mages of Oakenshore, and then the less powerful crop mages, and among them, Alex's father.
And thus ends the battle of Galvany Fields, and so began the Teertsi occupation.
If it weren't for the events of that day, of course, Alex would probably have stayed in Galvany Fields, and become a crop mage like his father. This was a bitter truth.
Eight years later, to the day, Alex found himself in a dilemma. The plan, developed and embellished in secret, had been simple. The plan had in fact been so secret, that Alex, involved as he would become, had had no knowledge of it until he had been called to his Head Master's chambers earlier that day, only to be met by a taskforce of mages and government officials.
"The plan is this, and there is little time, so listen carefully," Head Master Peeps had instructed him, before continuing: "We are going to hurl you into the Teertsi Hole as it opens. When you get to the other side, we are going to pull you back, and you are going to tell us what you saw there."
Stupid plan, Alex had thought.
And just how are you going to do this? How are you going to hurl me?"
"By catapult, of course."
"And... pull me back?"
"Rope."
And then the Starcatchers strike, and all hope is lost.
The star-kites they have unwound fall short of the eagles' attack, but they had never been intended as snares, leastwise, not for the eagles. An unfortunate wind has blown the kites much closer to the hilltop on which Alex stands, and, distracted from the eagles' demise, he watches in amazement and then growing alarm as the star-kites swoop down at the mages less than a stone's throw away. The kites are attracted, they must be, by the mages' magic. And whenever a kite strikes a mage, that mage falls down dead, first the mages of Oakenshore, and then the less powerful crop mages, and among them, Alex's father.
And thus ends the battle of Galvany Fields, and so began the Teertsi occupation.
If it weren't for the events of that day, of course, Alex would probably have stayed in Galvany Fields, and become a crop mage like his father. This was a bitter truth.
Eight years later, to the day, Alex found himself in a dilemma. The plan, developed and embellished in secret, had been simple. The plan had in fact been so secret, that Alex, involved as he would become, had had no knowledge of it until he had been called to his Head Master's chambers earlier that day, only to be met by a taskforce of mages and government officials.
"The plan is this, and there is little time, so listen carefully," Head Master Peeps had instructed him, before continuing: "We are going to hurl you into the Teertsi Hole as it opens. When you get to the other side, we are going to pull you back, and you are going to tell us what you saw there."
Stupid plan, Alex had thought.
And just how are you going to do this? How are you going to hurl me?"
"By catapult, of course."
"And... pull me back?"
"Rope."
Thursday, July 09, 2009
Starcatchers
And of course, Alex was well aware that many had not, that many of the poverty stricken members of society, who had before relied upon charity for their well being, had simply died of hunger. Many had been killed by the policemen of the occupying force during the early uprisings that took place in the first year of the occupation. And many had attempted to leave the Delta, though few had succeeded.
So the cities had adapted to their oppressors, and, in secret, planned their downfall.
"Filthy, oily bastards! Why?" Alex was weeping now. And of course, there was no answer, although he couldn't shake the strange feeling that someone, or something, was watching him.
The Starcatchers open their silvery cages, and shimmering star kites are released, stretching out into the sky on silken filaments. These filaments are attached to the cages by miniature winches, which the Starcatchers spin out rapidly. There are only a dozen or so.
What initially draws Alex's attention to the hilltop on the other side of the fields is the sound, which he initially thinks is coming from the group of Starcatchers. He can barely make out what they are doing, but the sound seems to come from the strange boxes they are holding, or from the bright kites rising from the crowd.
"The kites! The kites! They're trying to snare the eagles!" He yells out, and the other farm-folk join in the chorus.1
Silent they become as the mages of the Oakenshore Guild and the remaining crop mages pool their energy and cast out devastating curses to the opposing hilltop, obliterating several of the Starcatchers on the spot. Flying above the kites, the eagles descend on the hilltop, similarly bent on carnage.
The cacaphony from the other hill only grows. When he was a child, Alex had watched, horrified, as a group of older boys tortured an alleycat for their own amusement. This sound is similar, but worse, pure but awful, a cross between the sound of music and the sound of agony.
So the cities had adapted to their oppressors, and, in secret, planned their downfall.
"Filthy, oily bastards! Why?" Alex was weeping now. And of course, there was no answer, although he couldn't shake the strange feeling that someone, or something, was watching him.
The Starcatchers open their silvery cages, and shimmering star kites are released, stretching out into the sky on silken filaments. These filaments are attached to the cages by miniature winches, which the Starcatchers spin out rapidly. There are only a dozen or so.
What initially draws Alex's attention to the hilltop on the other side of the fields is the sound, which he initially thinks is coming from the group of Starcatchers. He can barely make out what they are doing, but the sound seems to come from the strange boxes they are holding, or from the bright kites rising from the crowd.
"The kites! The kites! They're trying to snare the eagles!" He yells out, and the other farm-folk join in the chorus.1
Silent they become as the mages of the Oakenshore Guild and the remaining crop mages pool their energy and cast out devastating curses to the opposing hilltop, obliterating several of the Starcatchers on the spot. Flying above the kites, the eagles descend on the hilltop, similarly bent on carnage.
The cacaphony from the other hill only grows. When he was a child, Alex had watched, horrified, as a group of older boys tortured an alleycat for their own amusement. This sound is similar, but worse, pure but awful, a cross between the sound of music and the sound of agony.
Monday, July 06, 2009
Eight Years Earlier
First to arrive was the mage army of the Oakenshore Guild, who after a brief, uneasy parley with the crop mages (who had retreated to a hilltop overlooking the battlefield), turned their efforts to the ground assault, hurling bolts of lightning and explosive curses against the Teertsi shock troops.
Soon after arrived the nimble lion-riders of Galvany, who were able to destroy much of the Teertsi ground offensive, distracted as the shock troopers were by the Oakenshore magic. With the lion-riders came birds of the sky, great eagles, which swooped down on the battlefield, plucking soldiers up and hurling them at their allies.
The lion-riders set up a whooping battle cry, rallying and re-rallying as they tore the Teertsi to pieces. From the vantage of their hilltop aerie, Alex and the other farm-folk joined in the rallying cry. His chest nearly burst with pride as he watched the tide of battle turning.
That battle had taken place eight years ago now, almost to the day. In actual fact, it had been eight years exactly.
"Eight years of occupation! Eight years paying tribute every year to those filthy oily bastards!" Alex yelled out into the void that surrounded him, but no answer came.
Every year since the occupation, on the day of the Autom Feast, the Teertsi Hole had reopened, and every year, a tribute of flour, lumber, preserved fish and various other goods was taken back to Teerts. There was nothing the Delta-folk could do about it, either, for the Teertsi were among them now.
And in many ways, ironically, the twin cities of the Delta had prospered since the occupation. The Teertsi occupation had ended the war between Galvany Fields and Azure Spires, for one. And though the Teertsi themselves were not hardworking, the people of the two cities had had to work that much harder in order to prosper, and many had risen to the challenge.
Soon after arrived the nimble lion-riders of Galvany, who were able to destroy much of the Teertsi ground offensive, distracted as the shock troopers were by the Oakenshore magic. With the lion-riders came birds of the sky, great eagles, which swooped down on the battlefield, plucking soldiers up and hurling them at their allies.
The lion-riders set up a whooping battle cry, rallying and re-rallying as they tore the Teertsi to pieces. From the vantage of their hilltop aerie, Alex and the other farm-folk joined in the rallying cry. His chest nearly burst with pride as he watched the tide of battle turning.
That battle had taken place eight years ago now, almost to the day. In actual fact, it had been eight years exactly.
"Eight years of occupation! Eight years paying tribute every year to those filthy oily bastards!" Alex yelled out into the void that surrounded him, but no answer came.
Every year since the occupation, on the day of the Autom Feast, the Teertsi Hole had reopened, and every year, a tribute of flour, lumber, preserved fish and various other goods was taken back to Teerts. There was nothing the Delta-folk could do about it, either, for the Teertsi were among them now.
And in many ways, ironically, the twin cities of the Delta had prospered since the occupation. The Teertsi occupation had ended the war between Galvany Fields and Azure Spires, for one. And though the Teertsi themselves were not hardworking, the people of the two cities had had to work that much harder in order to prosper, and many had risen to the challenge.
Thursday, July 02, 2009
Chaff Demons
Alex's father and the other crop mages now agreed that it was time for action, and so, strengthening and redoubling the hexes they had made on the chaff demons, they sent them at the intruders. But the chaff demons were no match for the Teertsi ground offensive, and again and again the straw men were beaten down, trodden underfoot or exploded into nebulae of hay, only to be brought into being again by the tireless crop mages.
"We can hold them! Keep them together, lads!"
Alex prayed that his father was right. He was almost too young to believe that his father could be wrong.
When the first wave of shock troops met the straw men in combat, they had smashed them with brute force. The crop mages pooled their guile and arcane energy, and the straw men were whirled back into being, forming larger and more powerful homunculi, which seemed momentarily to push back the Teertsi ground force. But then Alex had witnessed a terrifying sight, as some amongst the ground force drew forth lit torches, and set their comrades ablaze. Such was the nature of the Teertsi armor that it protected the wearer from the flames, while feeding the blaze. Alex watched as the burning soldiers tore a swath through the straw men, which kindled almost immediately into towering infernos, exploding from within as the crop dust took.
Trolls, Alex had seen, on one memorable (and quite frightening) occasion when he had traveled with his father to the Mithwood, to trade with the people who lived there. But these invaders, in many ways troll-like, were different. The trolls had been ruthless, but had only been protecting what was theirs. These people were relentless, intent only on breaking through to Azure Spires and neighboring Galvany.
And eventually the crop mages and their allies had had to do just that: to let the Teertsi pass through, and hope that they had given the twin cities of the Delta adequate time to prepare their defenses.
Had this only been the case, the occupation would have ended there, but there had been strife between the cities, and so the cities were prepared for attack, but not from this direction, and the reinforcements they mobilized were delayed.
"We can hold them! Keep them together, lads!"
Alex prayed that his father was right. He was almost too young to believe that his father could be wrong.
When the first wave of shock troops met the straw men in combat, they had smashed them with brute force. The crop mages pooled their guile and arcane energy, and the straw men were whirled back into being, forming larger and more powerful homunculi, which seemed momentarily to push back the Teertsi ground force. But then Alex had witnessed a terrifying sight, as some amongst the ground force drew forth lit torches, and set their comrades ablaze. Such was the nature of the Teertsi armor that it protected the wearer from the flames, while feeding the blaze. Alex watched as the burning soldiers tore a swath through the straw men, which kindled almost immediately into towering infernos, exploding from within as the crop dust took.
Trolls, Alex had seen, on one memorable (and quite frightening) occasion when he had traveled with his father to the Mithwood, to trade with the people who lived there. But these invaders, in many ways troll-like, were different. The trolls had been ruthless, but had only been protecting what was theirs. These people were relentless, intent only on breaking through to Azure Spires and neighboring Galvany.
And eventually the crop mages and their allies had had to do just that: to let the Teertsi pass through, and hope that they had given the twin cities of the Delta adequate time to prepare their defenses.
Had this only been the case, the occupation would have ended there, but there had been strife between the cities, and so the cities were prepared for attack, but not from this direction, and the reinforcements they mobilized were delayed.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Evil Magic over Galvany
When the Hole opened over the fields, there was confusion. The dark aperture occluded the sun as it enlarged from an occult pinpoint in the sky to a wide tear. Baffled by its appearance, the crop mages huddled together. And then the Teertsi gangs began to emerge.
"What... what is that?" Alex's father, an elder among the crop mages, had cried out.
"It looks like the sky is being torn!"
"This is evil, evil magic."
Alex could only agree.
The first sight the Delta folk had had of the Teertsi were the heliothopters, spidery airborne vehicles with only a single rider, pumping pedals and bellows to keep his flimsy craft aloft - but these were only scouts, soon followed by handfuls of airships, proud and terrifying zeppelins. Within short moments, the airships were dropping balloons filled with only enough hot air to slow their descent, and attached to these balloons were baskets brimming with Teertsi ground troops in their oily black armor, made from the hide of no beast Alex had ever seen. From these baskets also emerged the Starcatchers and the Lutanists, who began setting up their equipment on a nearby hilltop. The ground troops charged down the hillside and across the fields of Galvany.
"What... what is that?" Alex's father, an elder among the crop mages, had cried out.
"It looks like the sky is being torn!"
"This is evil, evil magic."
Alex could only agree.
The first sight the Delta folk had had of the Teertsi were the heliothopters, spidery airborne vehicles with only a single rider, pumping pedals and bellows to keep his flimsy craft aloft - but these were only scouts, soon followed by handfuls of airships, proud and terrifying zeppelins. Within short moments, the airships were dropping balloons filled with only enough hot air to slow their descent, and attached to these balloons were baskets brimming with Teertsi ground troops in their oily black armor, made from the hide of no beast Alex had ever seen. From these baskets also emerged the Starcatchers and the Lutanists, who began setting up their equipment on a nearby hilltop. The ground troops charged down the hillside and across the fields of Galvany.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
The Old Washerwoman of Scrub Sheelie
"...so wherever you are, you will eventually leave the quandary!" This would have been reassuring to Alex, if this were in fact a quandary in which he was floating, but it came as cold comfort, as this particular aetherial non-conformity allowed of only two exits. He remembered that much from his hurried briefing, only hours earlier.
A dilemma then... was the same thing true of a dilemma? He couldn't remember. So! He might be in here forever. Surely they hadn't intended that! The whole thing had happened so quickly. And there again was that strange voice in the back of his head. Alex asked it to go away, and it did.
In the earliest days of the Teertsi occupation of the Azure Delta, stories had been passed around from neighborhood to neighborhood; like, for instance, the old washerwoman from Scrub Sheelie, who, after the Teertsi gangs had taken her family from her, had turned her strong hands from wringing out the days laundry to wringing the necks of any young Teertsi foolish enough to venture out after the curfew they themselves had imposed. In Galvany Fields, where Alex had lived before coming to Azure Spires, the standard rejoinder to this story had always been that, were the Teertsi youth not so filthy that they rarely had their clothes laundered, the poor woman might have accepted their trade instead.
Alex had cringed when he heard stories like these. In those first days of occupation, his family had known both poverty and mistreatment at the hands of the Teertsi. He would never forget this.
He had been there to witness the Teertsi Hole opening. This he would never forget either. There had been chaff demons in the fields that day. Each year at the harvest, the crop mages would set hexes on the straw and threshed hay, separating the usable wheat and other grains from the rest. As the hexes took effect, the chaff would form whirlwind homunculi, thin and tall, graceful manakins which would then lend their assistance during the rest of the harvest. They were neither strong nor durable, but the chaff demons were reliable, until the Autom Feast after last harvest, at which they would dance themselves to pieces.
A dilemma then... was the same thing true of a dilemma? He couldn't remember. So! He might be in here forever. Surely they hadn't intended that! The whole thing had happened so quickly. And there again was that strange voice in the back of his head. Alex asked it to go away, and it did.
In the earliest days of the Teertsi occupation of the Azure Delta, stories had been passed around from neighborhood to neighborhood; like, for instance, the old washerwoman from Scrub Sheelie, who, after the Teertsi gangs had taken her family from her, had turned her strong hands from wringing out the days laundry to wringing the necks of any young Teertsi foolish enough to venture out after the curfew they themselves had imposed. In Galvany Fields, where Alex had lived before coming to Azure Spires, the standard rejoinder to this story had always been that, were the Teertsi youth not so filthy that they rarely had their clothes laundered, the poor woman might have accepted their trade instead.
Alex had cringed when he heard stories like these. In those first days of occupation, his family had known both poverty and mistreatment at the hands of the Teertsi. He would never forget this.
He had been there to witness the Teertsi Hole opening. This he would never forget either. There had been chaff demons in the fields that day. Each year at the harvest, the crop mages would set hexes on the straw and threshed hay, separating the usable wheat and other grains from the rest. As the hexes took effect, the chaff would form whirlwind homunculi, thin and tall, graceful manakins which would then lend their assistance during the rest of the harvest. They were neither strong nor durable, but the chaff demons were reliable, until the Autom Feast after last harvest, at which they would dance themselves to pieces.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Quandary
Alex was in a quandary. At least, that was where he thought he was, but he was unsure. If only he had paid more attention.
Oh well, he had all the time in the world to ponder it now. He silently cursed himself for not paying more attention in his Psychic and Magical Telemetry and Geography of the Arcane World classes. Only last month, there had been a guest lecturer who was rumored to have spoken very knowledgeably on the subject of "Topological Non-Conformities in the Aether." Alex, naturally, had skipped the lecture to go floating in the Tane, the small river that ran through the center of campus. It had been the hottest day of midsummer, far too hot to spend in a stuffy lecture hall.
For almost two years now, Alex had attended the School of Arts and Magic, in the College of Dweomer at the 'Varsity of Azure Spires. He was barely squeaking by with a passing grade in most of his subjects, "Psych and Madge" included.
"Now let's see... solutions: the quandary has four potential solutions, or egresses," he muttered to himself. "Indeterminability: you can never be completely sure which solution you are approaching... but... but..." There always was a "but" or a "however" attached to these sorts of definitions, a matter which had caused Alex serious grief in the past. "But!" he exclaimed, "you are assured of eventual egress as an invariant state of the quandary, based on the impossibility of stasis."
Put simply, if you can't stand still, you will eventually have to leave. Which is, ironically, a phrase several of his professors had applied to Alex in the last handful of months alone.
Oh well, he had all the time in the world to ponder it now. He silently cursed himself for not paying more attention in his Psychic and Magical Telemetry and Geography of the Arcane World classes. Only last month, there had been a guest lecturer who was rumored to have spoken very knowledgeably on the subject of "Topological Non-Conformities in the Aether." Alex, naturally, had skipped the lecture to go floating in the Tane, the small river that ran through the center of campus. It had been the hottest day of midsummer, far too hot to spend in a stuffy lecture hall.
For almost two years now, Alex had attended the School of Arts and Magic, in the College of Dweomer at the 'Varsity of Azure Spires. He was barely squeaking by with a passing grade in most of his subjects, "Psych and Madge" included.
"Now let's see... solutions: the quandary has four potential solutions, or egresses," he muttered to himself. "Indeterminability: you can never be completely sure which solution you are approaching... but... but..." There always was a "but" or a "however" attached to these sorts of definitions, a matter which had caused Alex serious grief in the past. "But!" he exclaimed, "you are assured of eventual egress as an invariant state of the quandary, based on the impossibility of stasis."
Put simply, if you can't stand still, you will eventually have to leave. Which is, ironically, a phrase several of his professors had applied to Alex in the last handful of months alone.
Saturday, June 20, 2009
Horns of a Dilemma: Introduction
In an effort to ignore this space so I can get some work done in other areas of my life (more on this at an appropriate time), over the next month, I am serializing an excerpt from one of several unsuccessful attempts at "National Write a Novel Month," in 8 installments, published Monday/Thursday. Enjoy!
Friday, June 19, 2009
Writers who Tweet
Following is a group of writers who I have been following in Twitter. They are all professional, in that they all would like to get paid for what they are doing. The phrase "professional writer" is undergoing some growing pains at the moment, much like the phrase "professional journalism," but simply put, most people want to get paid for what they do at some point, and we need the professionals in these estates, as much as we need the amateurs.
@bruces - Bruce Sterling wrote one of my favourite science fiction novels, Schismatrix; as well, Sterling's early cyberpunk anthology Mirrorshades set the stage for an entire genre. Sterling doesn't post as often as I'd like, but when he does, I always pay attention. A writer with his eye on the future.
@GreatDismal - William Gibson and Bruce Sterling collaborated on the steampunk prototype The Difference Engine, and it was William Gibson who has consistently hammered in the nail of cyberpunk. He is interviewed in a fantastic film No Maps for These Territories.
@1889ca - MCM is creator of Rollbots, animated mayhem currently showing on YTV in Canada, and soon elsewhere around the world. MCM is actively searching for different ways to perform and commoditize the process and distribution of writing. Also insane.
@scalzi - John Scalzi has written numerous fiction and non-fiction books, notably The Last Colony. He lives in Ohio, so when he tweets about finishing his writing quota for the day at 2.00 on the west coast, I have to realize it is dinner time in the east. Also a creative consultant for Stargate: Universe, which should get interesting.
@agnieszkasshoes - Dan Holloway is writing a novel on Facebook called The Man Who Painted Agnieszka's Shoes. He also blogs and is a member of the Year Zero Writers collective. When Dan tweets from the U.K., it is either really late on the west coast, or really early in the U.K.
I realize these are all male writers, and I will try to rectify that with a future list. Elizabeth Hand, possibly my favourite living writer, blogs at LiveJournal as the +1 in the Inferior 4+1, but refuses to tweet.
Please leave comments on female writers who tweet!
@bruces - Bruce Sterling wrote one of my favourite science fiction novels, Schismatrix; as well, Sterling's early cyberpunk anthology Mirrorshades set the stage for an entire genre. Sterling doesn't post as often as I'd like, but when he does, I always pay attention. A writer with his eye on the future.
@GreatDismal - William Gibson and Bruce Sterling collaborated on the steampunk prototype The Difference Engine, and it was William Gibson who has consistently hammered in the nail of cyberpunk. He is interviewed in a fantastic film No Maps for These Territories.
@1889ca - MCM is creator of Rollbots, animated mayhem currently showing on YTV in Canada, and soon elsewhere around the world. MCM is actively searching for different ways to perform and commoditize the process and distribution of writing. Also insane.
@scalzi - John Scalzi has written numerous fiction and non-fiction books, notably The Last Colony. He lives in Ohio, so when he tweets about finishing his writing quota for the day at 2.00 on the west coast, I have to realize it is dinner time in the east. Also a creative consultant for Stargate: Universe, which should get interesting.
@agnieszkasshoes - Dan Holloway is writing a novel on Facebook called The Man Who Painted Agnieszka's Shoes. He also blogs and is a member of the Year Zero Writers collective. When Dan tweets from the U.K., it is either really late on the west coast, or really early in the U.K.
I realize these are all male writers, and I will try to rectify that with a future list. Elizabeth Hand, possibly my favourite living writer, blogs at LiveJournal as the +1 in the Inferior 4+1, but refuses to tweet.
Please leave comments on female writers who tweet!
Friday, May 22, 2009
Writing with ink and erasers
Tolkien wrote the lion's share of his work in pencil, in standard school notebooks, over which he overwrote in pen, later erasing the pencil. This allowed him, amongst other things, freedom to change the underlying linguistic framework of his stories as he was writing them. This is something a word processor will not allow me to do.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Judgement and Discrimination
Okay, I firmly believe in the importance of judgement, that often it is more valuable to be the person saying "no" when others are saying yes. Judgement is undervalued; but discrimination in any form is sickening and morally reprehensible.
This in response to a study conducted by U.B.C. prof Philip Oreopoulos, which found that, in a phony mail survey of resumes sent out to online job postings in the Toronto area, mock applicants were 40 percent more likely to get a call back than those with Chinese, Indian or Pakistani names.
40 percent.
This is the 21st century, is it not? I am shocked, but not surprised by these numbers.
I recently posted an article regarding Ivan Krstić's move to Apple. While I was looking at other articles about the move, I came across the phrase He's also looking for a vowel for his last name. I am sure this is intended as a jest, but, still... Judge people by what they do, by what they say, but not by the way they spell their name.
This in response to a study conducted by U.B.C. prof Philip Oreopoulos, which found that, in a phony mail survey of resumes sent out to online job postings in the Toronto area, mock applicants were 40 percent more likely to get a call back than those with Chinese, Indian or Pakistani names.
40 percent.
This is the 21st century, is it not? I am shocked, but not surprised by these numbers.
I recently posted an article regarding Ivan Krstić's move to Apple. While I was looking at other articles about the move, I came across the phrase He's also looking for a vowel for his last name. I am sure this is intended as a jest, but, still... Judge people by what they do, by what they say, but not by the way they spell their name.
Thursday, May 14, 2009
Ivan Krstić joins Apple Core Security
I have been following Krstić's writing for several years now, and have found his weblog to be both informative and entertaining. I have no doubt that he will perform many good deeds at Apple, not the least of which will be adding an element of transparency to the organization. Consider me a fan of his writing, and I hope he continues to do so as he has in the past.For more information, look here, here and here
Thursday, April 09, 2009
Sugar on a Stick
Currently enjoying Cincinnati's Koala Fires - follow them on twitter to download a copy of their debut ep.
Also enjoying Loney, Dear's Daytrotter Session
After all has been said and done about the successes and failures of the One Laptop Per Child organisation, it is still built on a very sound set of principles, one of which is that children's education works best when the child owns the technology. When Sugar Labs separated from OLPC, they took this premise with them. Sugar on a Stick is a project currently in beta at Sugar Labs, which allows you to leverage Fedora LiveUSB to store the complete running Sugar OS on a USB stick.Also enjoying Loney, Dear's Daytrotter Session
I encourage you to help out with this project if you have primary school aged children (even older - I have really enjoyed the TamTam music software available with Sugar). The Sugar OS has been designed with children in mind. People who criticize the OLPC project for not training children in the use of Microsoft products (because these are an industry standard), are missing the point, I believe. Microsoft operating systems and applications are an industry standard because they are ubiquitous. You use them at work, you have a pirated copy at home, etc... just as the Macintosh equivalents are similarly pervasive. I love my OLPC XO for a variety of reasons, but it is an island in my life, because I am surrounded by pervasive operating systems and applications, and I always have been. Unfortunately, the OLPC laptop doesn't change this.Sugar on a Stick could.
Technology is ownership, portability, pervasiveness. With the Sugar on a Stick beta, Sugar Labs is driving toward these goals.
Friday, September 05, 2008
So maybe I should build a facebook application now?
A couple weeks back, in response to Mary Rotman's interview with Jesse Stay on O'Reilly FYI, about his new book, I posted an idea for a facebook application, and am now receiving a freebie copy of FBML Essentials. For what it's worth, here is a description of the application I proposed:
How hard is it to get facebook funding, anyway?
Currently enjoying:
Crystal Castles, "Death (White Lies Remix)"
Kristin Hersh - Mississippi Kite - Follow Kristin on Twitter - her tour notes read like a Tom Robbins novel or Tom Waits song:
I would love to develop a collaborative authoring/incentivized blogging application for facebook. Imagine: you begin playing and discover a 'location', for which you provide a description; you explore the location and discover 'characters', and describe their activities as you employ them to explore your world, discovering and detailing more locations, more characters. Further explorations discover 'neighbours' (friends playing the game); when you interact with their locations and characters, the outcome is determined by the amount of descriptive content you have already supplied for your own characters (hence incentivized). As a storyline becomes more involved, it can be extracted as RSS or PDF, say, which can then be published into your news feed.
This would be an experiment in 'facebook social media', like an alternative to Harlequin, Gossip Girl, reality television etc. One approach would be to extend an existing open-source CMS like WordPress, laconica or atomicWiki by adding custom features. Unlike mySpace, fb isn't a blogging platform, but this would not be a conventional weblog, something more akin to fanfiction.
How hard is it to get facebook funding, anyway?
Currently enjoying:
Crystal Castles, "Death (White Lies Remix)"
Kristin Hersh - Mississippi Kite - Follow Kristin on Twitter - her tour notes read like a Tom Robbins novel or Tom Waits song:
borrowed airmiles to fly to the west coast shows...they'll fill the gas tank to get our kids home...in problem-solving mode again
man, crows are the wickedest...got a whole murder outside this morning
Tuesday, August 05, 2008
Deerhoof and Creative Commons - Offending Maggie
Reposted from O'Reilly News: Regarding "Offending Maggie"
On June 3rd, 2008, "Fresh Born", the first single from San Francisco band Deerhoof's upcoming album, was posted as sheet music under a Creative Commons license. In a few months, a full twenty versions of "Fresh Born", recorded by all and sundry, have been recorded and contributed back to the CASH Music website.
Saturday, May 31, 2008
Roky Erickson sighting: Where the Pyramid meets Mogwai
I just think this is so cool: available digitally on September 9th, the new Mogwai EP will feature vocals on the closing track by none other than 13th Floor Elevator legend Roky Erickson. I cannot wait for this release!
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
In defense of SUGAR
Have I mentioned how much I love love love the Hood Internet? I am always impressed when a project is able to straddle the intersection of theory and practice, and to do so seemlessly. The idea behind the Hood Internet, apparently, is that people no longer have time to listen to both hip-hop/R&B AND indie rock, so the two djs who are the Hood Internet have made it their mission to mash up the best and the worst of the two genres, and the results are nothing short of spectacular. Standout tracks for me were R Kelly/Broken Social Scene, Project Pat/Shout Out Louds, and the ABSOLUTELY FREAKIN' ASTOUNDING Common/Bloc Party track (courtesy of Dr. J). All tracks are freely available (through zShare, which can be an awful pain, unfortunately), and if you get a chance, suport the Hood by checking them out live at various music festivals.
I love my XO, and what One Laptop Per Child stands for. There has been a lot of talk recently about Sugar breaking away from OLPC, culminating in the recent foundation of Sugar Labs, and this can only be a good thing. For me personally, the Sugar interface presents an incredible shift away from the time-wasting and procrastination which have plagued my past endeavours. In a similar vein, I have been really impressed in the past with the simplicity of the operating system, if you would call it that, in the original Alphasmart word-processor. The Alphasmart has now evolved into the Dana, a cool word-processor designed for students, which runs PalmOS, but the original OS consisted of 8 buttons each representing a file. Click the button and start writing or editing. This leaves no scope for time-wasting. With Sugar, you benefit from a similar simplicity. When I open up my journal (the Sugar activity manager is called the journal), I see links to the last 10 activities I have been working on. More are available if I scroll down, but I rarely do, since, chances are, I want to resume one of these ten activities, even if I have no activity in mind when I turn the laptop on. When I complete an activity, for instance, by finishing up a document, I back it up on the SD card and remove it from the journal
Another innovation that raises the Hood Internet one level beyond is their use of photochoppery to enhance user experience: each audio mashup is accompanied by a visual mashup, showing the various artists hanging out, often in unusual circumstances. These images are offered for comic effect, but the effect is perfect, and well-executed and effortlessly ironic. I am myself a fan of the independent rock, however, I do find it often lacking in old-school Elvis-style libido, which, as Kurt Cobain taught us, rhymes with mosquito.
I can see the advantage to this for a child or a student or myself, as a writer; in my professional capacity, I have spent countless hours digging about for a particular document on Windows, but I deal with countless documents. When I am writing at home, however, I may have two or three documents in progress, but not more than this, and by being able to access "the last thing I was doing," quickly and efficiently, with no mucking around, I am saving time.
This is one reason I like Sugar, and one way it does something for me that Windows, or for that matter KDE or OSX, does not.
Thursday, March 06, 2008
NIN == PBS, The Future of Ideas
Okay, so I was working this weekend, so I didn't hear about the new Nine Inch Nails album until monday, so it was too late to drop $300 on the deluxe edition, if I was so inclined. Instead, I fell asleep on the sofa watching KCTS Cooks Breakfast. I have pledged to PBS a couple times, always at the lowest level, and always for the geeky Red Dwarf t-shirt. For the most part, however, I experience PBS without supporting PBS.
If I do download Ghosts I-IV, it will be the same situation; I will support it only with my eardrums, not my wallet. However, there are 2500 people who are supporting Nine Inch Nails at the "corporate level", and there $300 a pop adds up to a decent $750,000. Wow, thanks!
I think the future of music will be a movement in this direction, which is really just a realisation of the fact that some people are prepared to pay more than others, many people are prepared to carry around the long tail, and the majority of people are free to listen to the radio. And the people who are really driving this movement are the local bands, who have no reason not to give things away, and the NIN's and Radioheads, who can afford to do whatever they please, really.
Okay, so I was working this weekend, so I didn't hear about the new Nine Inch Nails album until monday, so it was too late to drop $300 on the deluxe edition, if I was so inclined. Instead, I fell asleep on the sofa watching KCTS Cooks Breakfast. I have pledged to PBS a couple times, always at the lowest level, and always for the geeky Red Dwarf t-shirt. For the most part, however, I experience PBS without supporting PBS.
Free Stuff - Lawrence Lessig's The Future of Ideas has recently become available through a Creative Commons license - thank you Lawrence Lessig and Creative Commons, and thank you Random House for releasing the text from copyright. While The Future of Ideas may necessarily seem dated in places, it is evident from a rereading how pertinent these ideas still are, and how they have evolved from Code to Code v2; technologically, it is now the future, but the cultural spaces which Lessig continues to explore are much broader than the technologies supporting these spaces.
If I do download Ghosts I-IV, it will be the same situation; I will support it only with my eardrums, not my wallet. However, there are 2500 people who are supporting Nine Inch Nails at the "corporate level", and there $300 a pop adds up to a decent $750,000. Wow, thanks!
more free stuff - My broken iPod has been spinning the prerelease from the new Nada Surf album for months now. Lucky has now officially hit the shelves, and it delivers on the promise of "See these bones." The album is also available as a full album stream for a limited time, so you can get taste the whole, rather than the bite-sized morsels that even indie radio portion out. I'm curious, though; I remember REM promoting an album with a full album stream, and I remember Neil Young streaming his Living with War album, in this case, an act of protest. Streaming a full album enacts something different from releasing a single through the regular channels; I wonder if this act will lose its impact over time as the practice becomes more commonplace.
I think the future of music will be a movement in this direction, which is really just a realisation of the fact that some people are prepared to pay more than others, many people are prepared to carry around the long tail, and the majority of people are free to listen to the radio. And the people who are really driving this movement are the local bands, who have no reason not to give things away, and the NIN's and Radioheads, who can afford to do whatever they please, really.
Thursday, July 12, 2007
SaveInternetRadio.org:
If you love internet radio (soma, ioio, woxy, pandora, etc), time is running out before U.S. congress signs off on a rate hike that will, basically, anihilate the landscape of internet radio and support for independent music and thought as we know it.
If you live in the United States and you rely on internet radio in any way, I implore you to find out who your senator or representative is (lists are available), and call, email, whatever. In two days time, it's going to be awfully quiet.
If you love internet radio (soma, ioio, woxy, pandora, etc), time is running out before U.S. congress signs off on a rate hike that will, basically, anihilate the landscape of internet radio and support for independent music and thought as we know it.
Time and options are running out for Internet Radio. Late this afternoon, the court DENIED the emergency stay sought on behalf of webcasters, millions of listeners and the artists and music they support.
UNLESS CONGRESS ACTS BY JULY 15th, the new ruinous royalty rates will be going into effect on Sunday, threatening the future of all internet radio.
If you live in the United States and you rely on internet radio in any way, I implore you to find out who your senator or representative is (lists are available), and call, email, whatever. In two days time, it's going to be awfully quiet.
Tuesday, June 26, 2007
Internet Radio Day of Silence: One day is enough! savenetradio.org
So, if you're like me, music is an integral part of your day. I am an avid listener to an internet radio station, and recent events have me worried.
The future of Internet radio is in immediate danger. Royalty rates for webcasters have been drastically increased by a recent ruling and are due to go into effect on July 15 (retroactive to Jan 1, 2006!). To protest these rates and encourage the millions of net radio listeners to take action and contact their Congressional representatives, today is a national Day of Silence.
savenetradio.org
When my beloved WOXY went off the air last year, they were resurrected for the 3rd time by an angel in the guise of lala.com. But, had they stayed off the air, I would have had many other options. If the royalty rate increase goes through as planned, that's it. Across the board, mainstream and alternative entertainment sources will suffer, and that's sad. So make your voice heard if you care about internet radio.
On a related topic, WOXY's benefactor, lala.com, have now launched a DRM-free music service that will download music directly to your iPod, bypassing iTunes. How successful will this be? Well, it's gutsy, that's for sure, and a company well worth keeping an eye on.
On an unrelated topic, Danah Boyd's Apophenia blog is getting a massive number of hits in response to a blog-essay she posted recently on an apparent class separation between high school mySpace and FaceBook users. Unfortunately, many of the blog-essay's readers have apparently missed the point that the essay itself deals with teens, and is intended to open a dialog, not as an academic paper.
What amazes and saddens me is that Danah has intentionally put a blurb on the front page of her blog:
Welcome! If you're new, please check out Best-Of Apophenia. A feed for this blog is here.
Which I think is an absolutely brilliant idea, to situate the arguments that she is about to present. Unfortunately, most commentary on the blog is apparently made without the benefit of this context, which is really too bad.
When you read a post on a blog, try reading at the very least a few other posts before commenting; you might save yourself coming off as an ignorant ass!
Friday, April 20, 2007
CaseBook, "Simple Ships", The Twilight Sad
CaseBook is an open-source quality assurance tool developed for my current client to organize and generate testing documents. It is similar in concept, though not in scope, to DocBook, consisting of a data-schema or three and an assortment of xsl transforms. When new application features are developed, a high level map is built in the CaseBook document, detailing pages and states, controls on the page and assertions about the page. This document is then transformed to generate acceptance, integration and regression documents. Once the application map has been created, further assertions can be skimmed out of our bug-tracking database (Bugzilla), using its Atom format reports.
For our latest development sprint, I was able to build a testplan containing some sixty testcases for a manual tester in a couple of hours. Refactoring this data is not difficult since all reports are generated by transforms. Adding further assertions is also quite simple.
CaseBook is available at SourceForge.
During one of my early experiences as a developer, I worked in a development group that worked very hard to follow the keep it simple rapid development principle of "Simple Ships." Ideally, new modules are developed in short sprints, architectures don't become grandiose, and life is good. But we found ourselves adopting another adage: "Stupid Ships," and only half in jest. We discovered very often, throwaway ideas which began as a joke would prove to be more shippable than more traditional solutions. I have given a lot of thought to this as the years have passed: why is it that successful development often begins in jest?
Even though we are told that creativity and innovation are absolutely essential to survival in today's technology market, the fact remains that ideas which are too far outside the box are shot down without consideration of merit due to time constraints. An idea promoted in jest may slip under the radar and plant a seed. I have definitely seen this happen on several occasions. What begins as an employee's throwaway takes on a new life when it is suddenly assumed by management. Often this happens when a new feature is given a silly name, for instance. In my experience, people like silly names, because it personalizes the otherwise obscure process of software development.
The jest, in this case, may create a safer forum for discussion, and one which has enough distance from the anticipated or perceived problem that a solution may be found that challenges the initial premises of the problem, which is often enough to create an innovative solution. "Wouldn't it be funny if instead..." is a great way to refactor a problem so that it becomes solvable.
Also, if you are one of those developer people who experiences a knee-jerk reaction when your boss or client tasks you by executive fiat - "this is how it is going to be" - then the phrase "Stupid Ships" takes on a different shade of meaning: "Well, maybe I think this is stupid, and maybe I don't, but if you want it, and you will support it, and you will support me in developing it, then, well, we can ship it."
I believe a fundamental component in the shift from apprentice developer to journeyman, and then master comes from recognizing these "jests of brilliance" for what they are, as we encounter them, and instead of presenting them as throwaways, presenting them as statements that we are fully prepared to stand behind and back up.
CaseBook is an open-source quality assurance tool developed for my current client to organize and generate testing documents. It is similar in concept, though not in scope, to DocBook, consisting of a data-schema or three and an assortment of xsl transforms. When new application features are developed, a high level map is built in the CaseBook document, detailing pages and states, controls on the page and assertions about the page. This document is then transformed to generate acceptance, integration and regression documents. Once the application map has been created, further assertions can be skimmed out of our bug-tracking database (Bugzilla), using its Atom format reports.
For our latest development sprint, I was able to build a testplan containing some sixty testcases for a manual tester in a couple of hours. Refactoring this data is not difficult since all reports are generated by transforms. Adding further assertions is also quite simple.
Last Summer, at Home I had become the Invisible Boy - okay, so the title of this track from the debut release from Glasgow's Twilight Sad may be a little long... but, wow, if you like folky shoegazey music that grabs you by the guts and demands your attention, don't miss this one. "Last Summer" opens with a pounding percussive line reminiscent of Galaxie 500's cover of "Don't let your youth go to waste", building to an emotional release at the end, with vocals that could only come from Glasgow. I want to raise my children in that fair town, just so they can speak with that accent.
Last Summer, At Home....
The Twilight Sad - myspace
Last Summer, At Home....
The Twilight Sad - myspace
CaseBook is available at SourceForge.
During one of my early experiences as a developer, I worked in a development group that worked very hard to follow the keep it simple rapid development principle of "Simple Ships." Ideally, new modules are developed in short sprints, architectures don't become grandiose, and life is good. But we found ourselves adopting another adage: "Stupid Ships," and only half in jest. We discovered very often, throwaway ideas which began as a joke would prove to be more shippable than more traditional solutions. I have given a lot of thought to this as the years have passed: why is it that successful development often begins in jest?
The funny textual intrusions for record reviews and such also began as a joke, a holdover from my MA thesis, stolen quite shameslessly from David Foster Wallace's footnotes for Infinite Jest.
Even though we are told that creativity and innovation are absolutely essential to survival in today's technology market, the fact remains that ideas which are too far outside the box are shot down without consideration of merit due to time constraints. An idea promoted in jest may slip under the radar and plant a seed. I have definitely seen this happen on several occasions. What begins as an employee's throwaway takes on a new life when it is suddenly assumed by management. Often this happens when a new feature is given a silly name, for instance. In my experience, people like silly names, because it personalizes the otherwise obscure process of software development.
In reality, I was having a very hard time focussing on the task at hand, and since various other ideas kept interrupting the process of writing, I decided they should also interrupt the process of reading.
The jest, in this case, may create a safer forum for discussion, and one which has enough distance from the anticipated or perceived problem that a solution may be found that challenges the initial premises of the problem, which is often enough to create an innovative solution. "Wouldn't it be funny if instead..." is a great way to refactor a problem so that it becomes solvable.
This was also supposed to suggest a shuttle weaving from one side of the page to the other, but that is another story.
Also, if you are one of those developer people who experiences a knee-jerk reaction when your boss or client tasks you by executive fiat - "this is how it is going to be" - then the phrase "Stupid Ships" takes on a different shade of meaning: "Well, maybe I think this is stupid, and maybe I don't, but if you want it, and you will support it, and you will support me in developing it, then, well, we can ship it."
I believe a fundamental component in the shift from apprentice developer to journeyman, and then master comes from recognizing these "jests of brilliance" for what they are, as we encounter them, and instead of presenting them as throwaways, presenting them as statements that we are fully prepared to stand behind and back up.
Thursday, April 05, 2007
It's a Spider... Man! The friendly neighborhood internet:
Is the web becoming more collaborative? More semantic? metaphoric? I would expect in the coming days, all these things come to pass. And most people will fail to notice. The original hypertext transfer protocol was groundbreaking because it filled a niche, and did so in a remarkable fashion. For early adopters, that was enough, and out of the aether, or arpa, the web was born; but the sea-change occurred when the web ceased to be primarily textual, and became visual.
Currently loving on:
Mason Proper - Rest Up
(live in the WOXY lounge)
I still can't get enough Mason Proper, and their latest appearance in the WOXY lounge, their second, sounded great. I have Rachael from Underrated to thank for tipping me off to Mason Proper, so props!
I am lead to believe that the next global shift in the web will be visual also, when 3d replaces 2d. Not sure if Second Life fills the bill. I could be wrong, though, web 2.0 represents a decentering of the web object, shifting focus to the audience, and though web 2.0 applications do tend to share a visual look (well, rounded corners, obv, and tableless design), this is mostly stylistic, an attempt to "look 2.0".
My personal take is that the emerging web is still primarily solipsistic and protective, but I see the self-sustaining nature of WikiPedia becoming more pervasive as online identities become less anonymous.
Peter Parker was a reporter. Perhaps in the 21st C, he'd be a blogger. As his secret identity Spiderman, he maintains law and order in his friendly neighborhood, even though sometimes he has a hard time explaining how Peter Parker happened to be on the scene when he shows the photographs to J. Jonah Jameson later.
For the most part, the web is a friendly neighborhood, and Spiderman has a lot of help. I've seen plenty of flame-wars end with a troll banned or otherwise ejected, and the neighborhood returns to order. And people stand up for each other on the web, and for the things they believe in, against the tyrannies of homophobia, misogyny, civil liberties or any other unacceptable behavior. And I am proud of these people.
I think there is a tipping point in one's life when one gains a certain notoriety for one thing, and then applies that notoriety to reaching a wider audience.
And therein lies something I find problematic: Spiderman is notorious, Peter Parker is not. But Spiderman is the facade. We live in a time when anyone with a PC and an ISP can create a web presence online (myspace page etc), and the only reason many choose to remain anonymous is because that is the norm. A forum could decide that it would only allow posts from members who have created a web presence (an online location to associate with this person if they act in a destructive fashion; a personal namespace) - at this point, true dialog begins to emerge from identification.
Of course, this ability exists already, but is not a norm, and this sort of dialog runs against the extreme virtualization of Second Life and its ilk. Wikipedia and Digg are other examples of applications which successfully blend anonymity and collaboration.
I am increasingly enjoying Danah Boyd's Apophenia Blog. At the top of her blog roll is a little notice:
Welcome! If you're new, please check out Best-Of Apophenia. A feed for this blog is here.
This is fantastic! The Best-of link is a great idea! I can't count the number of times I've come across a weblog, liked what the person has to say, but been unable to really get a bead on where they're coming from, ideals etc. Putting a Best-of link right up front tells new and familiar visitors alike what you consider to be the writing that has best conveyed What you are trying to say. The words you choose are like the clothes you wear when you travel around the web-o-sphere - these are your red and blue spandex, so why not make them noticeable?
Is the web becoming more collaborative? More semantic? metaphoric? I would expect in the coming days, all these things come to pass. And most people will fail to notice. The original hypertext transfer protocol was groundbreaking because it filled a niche, and did so in a remarkable fashion. For early adopters, that was enough, and out of the aether, or arpa, the web was born; but the sea-change occurred when the web ceased to be primarily textual, and became visual.
Currently loving on:
Mason Proper - Rest Up
(live in the WOXY lounge)
I still can't get enough Mason Proper, and their latest appearance in the WOXY lounge, their second, sounded great. I have Rachael from Underrated to thank for tipping me off to Mason Proper, so props!
I am lead to believe that the next global shift in the web will be visual also, when 3d replaces 2d. Not sure if Second Life fills the bill. I could be wrong, though, web 2.0 represents a decentering of the web object, shifting focus to the audience, and though web 2.0 applications do tend to share a visual look (well, rounded corners, obv, and tableless design), this is mostly stylistic, an attempt to "look 2.0".
My personal take is that the emerging web is still primarily solipsistic and protective, but I see the self-sustaining nature of WikiPedia becoming more pervasive as online identities become less anonymous.
Peter Parker was a reporter. Perhaps in the 21st C, he'd be a blogger. As his secret identity Spiderman, he maintains law and order in his friendly neighborhood, even though sometimes he has a hard time explaining how Peter Parker happened to be on the scene when he shows the photographs to J. Jonah Jameson later.For the most part, the web is a friendly neighborhood, and Spiderman has a lot of help. I've seen plenty of flame-wars end with a troll banned or otherwise ejected, and the neighborhood returns to order. And people stand up for each other on the web, and for the things they believe in, against the tyrannies of homophobia, misogyny, civil liberties or any other unacceptable behavior. And I am proud of these people.
I think there is a tipping point in one's life when one gains a certain notoriety for one thing, and then applies that notoriety to reaching a wider audience.
And therein lies something I find problematic: Spiderman is notorious, Peter Parker is not. But Spiderman is the facade. We live in a time when anyone with a PC and an ISP can create a web presence online (myspace page etc), and the only reason many choose to remain anonymous is because that is the norm. A forum could decide that it would only allow posts from members who have created a web presence (an online location to associate with this person if they act in a destructive fashion; a personal namespace) - at this point, true dialog begins to emerge from identification.
Of course, this ability exists already, but is not a norm, and this sort of dialog runs against the extreme virtualization of Second Life and its ilk. Wikipedia and Digg are other examples of applications which successfully blend anonymity and collaboration.
I am increasingly enjoying Danah Boyd's Apophenia Blog. At the top of her blog roll is a little notice:
Welcome! If you're new, please check out Best-Of Apophenia. A feed for this blog is here.
This is fantastic! The Best-of link is a great idea! I can't count the number of times I've come across a weblog, liked what the person has to say, but been unable to really get a bead on where they're coming from, ideals etc. Putting a Best-of link right up front tells new and familiar visitors alike what you consider to be the writing that has best conveyed What you are trying to say. The words you choose are like the clothes you wear when you travel around the web-o-sphere - these are your red and blue spandex, so why not make them noticeable?
Wednesday, March 28, 2007
Why I don't like Pandora
I really wanted to like Pandora when I first started streaming music there some several years back... the idea of audiomemes appealed to me, but, there were no PEOPLE there! Then one day I discovered WOXY, the greatest internet radio on the planet (who are launching a new music blog today), and never looked back. 6 months back or so, WOXY went off the air, to be resurrected a month later by lala.com, who now give them the support and resources they needed, but had the good sense to leave everything intact.
The lesson: don't mess with success, stand out of the way of the people... and don't mess with this developer's radio!
Cheers WOXY, and thank you lala!
Tuesday, March 13, 2007
Project CaseBook:
CaseBook is a collection of XML Schema, XSLT and XQuery which allow you to model an application's controls, pages and states at a high level in an XML document, then use this model to generate documentation for manual testing. Information can also be skimmed out of Bugzilla (or any issue management tool with an Atom feed). CaseBook is intended to fill a need for an easy to use knowledge-base for quality assurance data. I began this project as a way to replace a number of Word documents that were constantly out of date.
I am currently in the process of adding CaseBook as an open source project on SourceForge, under GPL.
Because a CaseBook knowledge base can be implemented using exclusively XML technologies which are freely available, it is by design a very extensible solution, as opposed to less abstract approaches to generating testing documents. This is intended to provide a mid-range between storing testing data as unformatted data (ie word) and using a costly solution.
The CaseBook Schema can be used as is with a XML-friendly editor like oXygen or StylusStudio for transforms, or can be staged on an eXist database equipped server (my preference).
Watch this space for more updates.
- Currently listening to WOXY's coverage of SXSW 2007 - wish that I was there right now.
She, Sir - It's my way of staying connected
CaseBook is a collection of XML Schema, XSLT and XQuery which allow you to model an application's controls, pages and states at a high level in an XML document, then use this model to generate documentation for manual testing. Information can also be skimmed out of Bugzilla (or any issue management tool with an Atom feed). CaseBook is intended to fill a need for an easy to use knowledge-base for quality assurance data. I began this project as a way to replace a number of Word documents that were constantly out of date.
I am currently in the process of adding CaseBook as an open source project on SourceForge, under GPL.
Because a CaseBook knowledge base can be implemented using exclusively XML technologies which are freely available, it is by design a very extensible solution, as opposed to less abstract approaches to generating testing documents. This is intended to provide a mid-range between storing testing data as unformatted data (ie word) and using a costly solution.
The CaseBook Schema can be used as is with a XML-friendly editor like oXygen or StylusStudio for transforms, or can be staged on an eXist database equipped server (my preference).
Watch this space for more updates.
- Currently listening to WOXY's coverage of SXSW 2007 - wish that I was there right now.
She, Sir - It's my way of staying connected
Friday, March 09, 2007
"With all of these changes, XSLT 2.0 is able to assume a much more extensive “work-horse” mode than it has previously. Most of these modes have already been explored with older extended XSLT 1.0 processors, but because such implementations tended to differ in critical areas developers and IT managers tended to shy away from them for all but very specialized applications. "
- from his o'reilly blog, Kurt Cagle on XSLT 2.0, a very good summary of the technology and its ramifications.
One thing Kurt mentions is the ability to use unparsed-text() to build up-convertors - Michael Kay has a great paper on this topic, up-converting genealogical data to XML.
Currently still loving Loney, Dear, and more than a little obsessing over Mason Proper and She, Sir. Too bad it's not "Mason, Proper" - for symmetry, see?
Let's see: Michigan based, debut album self-released "There is a Moth in Your Chest" - Vocally, Mason Proper remind me a lot of the 90's experimental work of Ian Masters in the Pale Saints and Spoonfed Hybrid... and that's a really good thing for me, since I loved those bands a ton.
Listening to Mason Proper has the wonderful effect of cheering me up. That's also a very good thing. If you listen to the lyrics a bit closer, well, damn! they're pretty cool, never too obscure, and twee only to the point that it's fun, not obnoxious. Good stuff, I only wish they'd tour my neck of the woods!
Mason Proper - The World Is Smaller Than you Think
Mason Proper - Mr. Charm
Mason Proper - Lights Off
Mason Proper - Chemical Dress
MySpace - Mason Proper
- from his o'reilly blog, Kurt Cagle on XSLT 2.0, a very good summary of the technology and its ramifications.
One thing Kurt mentions is the ability to use unparsed-text() to build up-convertors - Michael Kay has a great paper on this topic, up-converting genealogical data to XML.
Currently still loving Loney, Dear, and more than a little obsessing over Mason Proper and She, Sir. Too bad it's not "Mason, Proper" - for symmetry, see?
Let's see: Michigan based, debut album self-released "There is a Moth in Your Chest" - Vocally, Mason Proper remind me a lot of the 90's experimental work of Ian Masters in the Pale Saints and Spoonfed Hybrid... and that's a really good thing for me, since I loved those bands a ton.
Listening to Mason Proper has the wonderful effect of cheering me up. That's also a very good thing. If you listen to the lyrics a bit closer, well, damn! they're pretty cool, never too obscure, and twee only to the point that it's fun, not obnoxious. Good stuff, I only wish they'd tour my neck of the woods!
Mason Proper - The World Is Smaller Than you Think
Mason Proper - Mr. Charm
Mason Proper - Lights Off
Mason Proper - Chemical Dress
MySpace - Mason Proper
Friday, March 02, 2007
Innovation = Insight + Judgment + Invention
Dan Safer [Adaptive Path] in Newsweek:
"Innovation is traditionally understood as a combination of insight
and invention, with insight being the 'Aha!' moment and invention
being the company's muscle to make it happen. This is all well and
good, but one crucial aspect of the definition is missing: The
ability to judge the inspiration and determine whether it is
worthwhile to spend the company's resources on the invention. Without
this judgment, innovation is just The New, and new isn't always
better. It's a louder sizzle, not a juicier steak. For innovation to
be truly important, it needs to resonate with consumers. Insights
need to be derived from the unmet needs and desires of people, not
simply the company's feeling that it needs to innovate."
The rest of the article is available online [1] (subscription
required) or at your local newsstand. Look for the March 5, 2007
edition!
[1] http://tinyurl.com/3b35rn
Dan Safer [Adaptive Path] in Newsweek:
"Innovation is traditionally understood as a combination of insight
and invention, with insight being the 'Aha!' moment and invention
being the company's muscle to make it happen. This is all well and
good, but one crucial aspect of the definition is missing: The
ability to judge the inspiration and determine whether it is
worthwhile to spend the company's resources on the invention. Without
this judgment, innovation is just The New, and new isn't always
better. It's a louder sizzle, not a juicier steak. For innovation to
be truly important, it needs to resonate with consumers. Insights
need to be derived from the unmet needs and desires of people, not
simply the company's feeling that it needs to innovate."
The rest of the article is available online [1] (subscription
required) or at your local newsstand. Look for the March 5, 2007
edition!
[1] http://tinyurl.com/3b35rn
Thursday, February 01, 2007
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Planar Chaos Capsule Reviews
Courtesy of NicotineJones of MiseTings
Planar Chaos - White
Planar Chaos - Blue/Black
Planar Chaos - Red
Planar Chaos - Green/Gold etc
My thoughts? I really like Giants, and not so much Boros Deck Wins, so the extra stuff in RW is pleasant, but the Hammerheim dude doesn't do a lot for me. Shade of Trokair looks nice; Sinew Sliver-Cautery Sliver could be a lot of fun, and I really want to play Pyrohemia for something. Dreamscape Artist (the Harrow guy) seems really good too, maybe with the Ana Battlemage to back him up (so I liked BUG a lot too).
Oh p.s. happy birthday to me! Just discovered this little snippet of info:
Courtesy of NicotineJones of MiseTings
Planar Chaos - White
Planar Chaos - Blue/Black
Planar Chaos - Red
Planar Chaos - Green/Gold etc
My thoughts? I really like Giants, and not so much Boros Deck Wins, so the extra stuff in RW is pleasant, but the Hammerheim dude doesn't do a lot for me. Shade of Trokair looks nice; Sinew Sliver-Cautery Sliver could be a lot of fun, and I really want to play Pyrohemia for something. Dreamscape Artist (the Harrow guy) seems really good too, maybe with the Ana Battlemage to back him up (so I liked BUG a lot too).
Oh p.s. happy birthday to me! Just discovered this little snippet of info:
Nice! Looks like some of my favorite technologies just became official! Thank yous to everyone involved!http://www.w3.org/ — 23 January 2007 — Based on widespread implementation experience and extensive feedback from users and vendors, W3C has published eight new standards in the XML Family to support the ability to query, transform, and access XML data and documents. The primary specifications are XQuery 1.0: An XML Query Language, XSL Transformations (XSLT) 2.0, and XML Path Language (XPath) 2.0; see the full list below.
These new Web Standards will play a significant role in enterprise computing by connecting databases with the Web. XQuery allows data mining of everything from memos and Web service messages to multi-terabyte relational databases. XSLT 2.0 adds significant new functionality to the already widely deployed XSLT 1.0, which enables the transformation and styled presentation of XML documents. Both specifications rely on XPath 2.0, also significantly enriched from its previous version.
W3C’s XSL Working Group and XML Query Working Group, who created these specifications, have addressed thousands of comments from implementers and the interested public to ensure that the specifications meet the needs of diverse communities.
Friday, January 19, 2007
Loney Dear
Okay, so Loney, Dear makes me happy, very happy, and I'm sure we'll hear more from them (him) in the future. The song I am John is so infectious, in fact, that I can't stop listening to it. The sound is kind of ABBA-esque, kind of Belle and Sebastian-esque, kind of Brian Wilson-esque, kind of its own thing. The song actually reminds me a lot of Broken Social Scene, which is odd, since Loney, Dear is really a one man band, one Emil Svanangen. It has a real "pass the mike around" feel, even though I believe it's all one guy with an impressive vocal range, guaranteed to cheer you up, and never gonna let you down!
I'm gonna go on record here with this one before someone beats me to it -- "Sweden's Robert Pollard"
Loney, Dear - I am John
www.loneydear.com
myspace
Friday, January 05, 2007
Sprites
To start, apparently, like Pixies before them, Sprites choose not to use the. Fine enough! I checked this out with a visit to their wonderful website, a real work of art by one Susie Gahramani. The website is all friendly and tweedy, much like Sprites' sound. I love grainy vocals, and head-sprite Jason Korzen's definitely fit the bill, reminding me in a way of Mark Kozolek or Nada Surf.
And who doesn't love horror movies? Dropping pop culture references like a genial Quentin Tarantino, George Romero is the track on Modern Gameplay that I can't get out of my head.
Sprites - George Romero
Sprites - I Started a Blog Nobody Read
Sprites - Do It Yourself
sprites.org.uk
Musical Quark: Collectives
Okay, I love the new K-OS track Valhalla. Love it. K-OS is a contributer to the Broken Social Scene collective, which Wikipedia describes as a "Supergroup." I'm also loving Lambchop's Kurt Wagner showing up guest vocals on a track by Morcheeba. Like Lambchop, Broken Social Scene is both a small (1 or 2) group of core members, and a whole bunch of people who also showed up for a particular session. Collectives are a wonderful thing, and the world should have more of them.
To quote the Sprites website:
People have frequently assumed that "Do It Yourself" was written specifically about Barcelona, but its not entirely the case. The song is really just about the difficulty of writing songs with other people, the compromises involved, and the inevitable disappointment. Jason felt so strongly about this that Sprites, the band, was intentionally formed with a changing cast of characters. Not a backing band, but a group of friends who could come together in different arrangements, write songs together, perform, and hang out. Nobody should ever have to be kicked out. The band would never have to break up.
I want to be in a band when I get to heaven; anyone can play guitar!
To start, apparently, like Pixies before them, Sprites choose not to use the. Fine enough! I checked this out with a visit to their wonderful website, a real work of art by one Susie Gahramani. The website is all friendly and tweedy, much like Sprites' sound. I love grainy vocals, and head-sprite Jason Korzen's definitely fit the bill, reminding me in a way of Mark Kozolek or Nada Surf.
And who doesn't love horror movies? Dropping pop culture references like a genial Quentin Tarantino, George Romero is the track on Modern Gameplay that I can't get out of my head.
Sprites - George Romero
Sprites - I Started a Blog Nobody Read
Sprites - Do It Yourself
sprites.org.uk
Musical Quark: Collectives
Okay, I love the new K-OS track Valhalla. Love it. K-OS is a contributer to the Broken Social Scene collective, which Wikipedia describes as a "Supergroup." I'm also loving Lambchop's Kurt Wagner showing up guest vocals on a track by Morcheeba. Like Lambchop, Broken Social Scene is both a small (1 or 2) group of core members, and a whole bunch of people who also showed up for a particular session. Collectives are a wonderful thing, and the world should have more of them.
To quote the Sprites website:
People have frequently assumed that "Do It Yourself" was written specifically about Barcelona, but its not entirely the case. The song is really just about the difficulty of writing songs with other people, the compromises involved, and the inevitable disappointment. Jason felt so strongly about this that Sprites, the band, was intentionally formed with a changing cast of characters. Not a backing band, but a group of friends who could come together in different arrangements, write songs together, perform, and hang out. Nobody should ever have to be kicked out. The band would never have to break up.
I want to be in a band when I get to heaven; anyone can play guitar!
Tuesday, December 12, 2006
XML Conference 2006
Lots of good writeups around, and lots of good ideas to dig through:
Simon st. Laurent - day one
Simon St. Laurent - wrap up
Keith Fahlgren - day two
Keith Fahlgren - Day three
Currently listening to the Guillemots, redefining friendly and epic, and making my ears feel happy!
Guillemots - Trains to Brazil
Lots of good writeups around, and lots of good ideas to dig through:
Simon st. Laurent - day one
Simon St. Laurent - wrap up
Keith Fahlgren - day two
Keith Fahlgren - Day three
Currently listening to the Guillemots, redefining friendly and epic, and making my ears feel happy!
Guillemots - Trains to Brazil
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