randomwalks/dj

software of mischief

Originally posted by lauren_cornell from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on January 30, 2006 11:46 PM

The choice of a space near the Washington Monument thrilled supporters, but some argued the project would clutter the Mall.

Originally from NYT > Home Page, on January 30, 2006 11:46 PM

True friend Meg tagged me with four things. Kenyatta almost did, but apparently he was worried about a self induced overdose of vitamin M(eme). Nonsense!

Four Jobs I've Had:

1. Perl Programmer - From the first iteration of nea.org in the summer of 1994 to my current work as a full time software architect and programmer, I've always been a programmer at heart. Also at the NEA, I built a link sharing program from teachers in the summer of 1996. There was no auth (or tags) but it did have comments. (I should have kept going with that. :) The search was a regular expression, and the "view all" button was simply a search on the letter 'e.' I'm pretty good at this, but after 12 years I should be even better!
2. MediaRights - Director of Technology and Distribution. The "and distribution" was only added to my title in the last year I was there, but I loved my job at MediaRights helping filmmakers get their messages further. It was my boss Nicole who gave the folks at Netflix the idea of releasing films from PBS/POV to Netflix subscribers the day they were broadcast, and now that distribution model is all the rage.
3. Teacher - Both at SEI and the House of Umoja in Portland, Oregon. Both my parents are life long teachers, so it seemed completely natural for me to take teaching jobs in Portland during a semester off from school and again after I graduated. It actually never occurred to me to look for programming jobs after college, although obviously I came back to it.
4. Odd jobs at Oberlin - I had a million jobs at Oberlin, including working at conference services and in the student union.

Four_{teen +2} movies I can watch over and over:

• The Celebration
• The Chungking Express
• Contact
• Fireworks
• The Fugitive
• The Hulk
• In the Mood for Love
• The Incredibles
• The Iron Giant
• Mullholland Drive
• Rear Window
• Rushmore
• Tampopo
• Star Trek VI
• The Third Man
• Toy Story 2

Four places I've lived:

1. Fairfax, Virginia
2. Oberlin, Ohio
3. Portland, Oregon
4. New York City

Four TV Shows I love:

1. The Wire - All 4 entries could be Wire episodes, especially the last half of the third season.
2. Monk - I'm monkish.
3. Deadwood
4. Mets Baseball

Four Places I've vacationed:

• London, England
• Paris, France
• Tokyo, Japan
• Vancouver, Canada

Four of my favorite dishes:

1. Pepperoni Pizza - I'm vegan, but this is still my favorite food.
2. Adriana's Beans and Rice
3. Dumplings (regular old fried dumplings are fine for me.
4. Dosa (hopefully from the Dosa Cart)

Four sites I visit daily:

• http://davidjacobs.livejournal.com/friends/
• http://dj.riceweevil.com/
• http://google.com/ig/
• http://flickr.com/photos/friends/

Four places I would rather be right now:

1. Montreal (never been!)
2. Alaska
3. Portland, OR
4. Houseboat

Who's next???

1. Adriana
2. Angela
3. Mr. Sun!
4. Claire

Originally from hello, typepad, on January 30, 2006 10:11 PM

[American Express] will team with Bono and UK-based [Product Red] to launch a new product, American Express RED, a charge card that contributes 1% of spending toward the fight against AIDS and malaria in Africa. AmEx RED will be the first credit card targeted at "conscience consumers" who make decisions about brands based on their social, ethical and environmental values. Besides AmEx, other RED partners are Converse, GAP and Giorgio Armani.

A word from American Express:

"We're a founding member of RED because we're convinced it makes good business sense. We support an ethical initiative which encourages consumers to make a positive impact in the fight against HIV and AIDS in Africa.... There's no other initiative currently working with private enterprise on this scale to help deliver change. We're also committed to coming up with exciting and new products for our cardmembers and offering them opportunities to get involved in new and innovative ideas. That's why we've created American Express RED.....The easy way to do the RED thing. It couldn’t be simpler. You don’t have to make any extra effort to make a difference, because American Express RED is designed to make it simple for you to give everytime you spend. The only effort you have to make is to use American Express RED when making your everyday purchases."

I agree, 'good business' is indeed good for business. But why am I so skeptical? I find myself thinking back to a recent talk at the Strand Bookshop hosted by Tamara Draut, the director of the economic opportunity program at [Demos] and author of "Strapped: Why America's 20- and 30-Somethings Can't Get Ahead." Says Draut, "Sixty percent of young adults between 18 and 34 are struggling for financial independence. I wish credit cards were not so easy to obtain. When you don't have any food in the refrigerator and a pre-approved credit card is on the counter, it's easy to open that card and activate it." Draut wants legislation to stop what she sees as the most egregious lending practices of the credit card companies.

Maybe that's it. 1% of our spending goes to a very charitable cause, but how much interest do we pay on our credit cards? Where does all that interest go? Why is the interest so high in the first place? And why indeed are credit card companies so eager to give out new cards? Is it for the love of RED, or it for the love of GREEN?

Originally from l-e-mental, on January 30, 2006 09:43 PM

I think this is the first flash piece I ever made - 1998? for bornmag

Originally posted by stamen from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on January 30, 2006 08:58 PM

What with Valentine's Day just around the corner, and our successful peek into Hilary Swank and Chad Lowe's future love lives, we're really getting in to the celebrity matchmaking these days. And as semi-professional celebrity matchmakers, we can't help but...

Originally posted by Emily from Amy's Robot, on January 30, 2006 08:57 PM

What are you waiting for?

Originally posted by dainichijess from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on January 30, 2006 07:55 PM

Originally posted by miyagawa from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on January 30, 2006 07:54 PM

(Via MoPocket)

Justin Oberman posts in Personal Democracy Forum about a smartmobby political adaptation of what was originally a marketing device -- and how using the technology is not sufficient to achieve political wins. Oberman traces the current use of SMS alerts for political advocacy back to its original use as "Wireless Fan Access (WFX)" -- part of a promotional campaign for Britney Spears and Samsung.

WFX's creator (as well as President & CEO of Rights Group), Jed Alpert, was volunteering at a People for the American Way phone bank during the filibuster debate over judicial nominees last spring when he realized how his wireless technology could help solve some of the inefficiencies involved with voice P2P organizing over landlines.

"I instantly realized that we could use the same wireless technology, that worked so well on a commercial level, to mobilize thousands of activists instantly," Albert told me. Only this time, subscribers would have to be divided and sorted based on location and Congressional representation instead of how their birthday related to the movement of the planets. Embedded in each text message is the telephone number of the subscriber's Senator in Washington with a brief message as to what to call about. Using the WFX technology that Alpert created, PFAW has the ability to send out several thousand text-messages in one moment to the activist subscribers that sign on for the service.

The nomination of John Roberts to the Supreme Court was the first test of Alpert and PFAW's collaboration. "We got an opt-in rate that was 5 times better then any opt in rate our commercial entertainment campaign ever received," says Alpert. "Simply put, we got an opt-in rate of 27 percent, which is unbelievable." PFAW saw it as a huge success as well. According to PFAW's Online Product Manager Matt Pusateri "nearly 25,000 people signed up and used the tool before and during his nomination."

Originally posted by Howard from Smart Mobs, on January 30, 2006 07:53 PM

Originally from Tuberaider Video, on January 30, 2006 07:52 PM

According to an article released today on Gamasutra, the wildly popular DS Brain Training series is coming out in North America from Nintendo under the name "Brain Age".

Quoting directly from the Gamasutra article:

Officially revealed is a April 17 release date for Brain Age: Train Your Brain in Minutes a Day (known as Brain Training in Japan), which presents players with a series of short mental brain-training challenges that incorporate word memorization, counting and reading. The Western versions of the series have also added sudoku number puzzles, which have become extremely popular features in newspapers around the country, and especially in Europe.

In addition, second title Big Brain Academy will launch on May 30, and offers players 15 fun activities that test their brain powers in areas like logic, memory, math and analysis. Up to eight people can play with a single game card, and each activity takes less than a minute to complete.

You can find the entire article here.

Originally from USC IMD: , on January 30, 2006 07:52 PM

I'm running a little experiment here. I've decided that while the glowing box babysits, I will pretend, for that half an hour that I would normally spend doing dishes or laundry, that I am actually a writer. Dum-dee-dum... I am a writer, and I am doing very important work here at my desk. Really. If I do this everyday, and gradually increase the amount of time as circumstances allow, then I can continue to call myself a writer, even if I am never published again. Surely if I keep this up I will eventually produce something of note; something I can point to and say, "See, I told you I was a writer."

It is becoming clear that my problem is not so much that I don't have time to write, which is true, but more that I don't make time to write. I don't take that time out of my day because it isn't a priority. It isn't a priority because I don't take myself seriously as a writer. I don't take myself seriously as a writer because I do not write. I do not write because I do not have time to write. I don't have time to write because I don't make time to write. The whole thing, spellled out as it is here, is quite pathetic.

I've been thinking a lot about what Mike said, and I wonder if it really is about the urge, the necessity to write. What if that is the missing piece for me; the thing that makes me not really a writer, but simply someone who enjoys writing? And would that be so terrible a thing? I like to pretend I'm something I'm not, but I don't feel a need to call myself an actor. Why must it be tied to my identity?

Well, I think some of it has to do with how I'd like to see myself as opposed to how I really see myself. Like, I want to be a writer. I admire writers. I admire all artists, but I have a special affinity for the writer. I understand that type of artistry that is creative, but still too tied to the intellect to truly transcend this earth, and therein lies the torment that is necessary for any really good art. I can dig it. The other part of it must be tied to my sense of who I am in actuality. I think that the more entrenched in motherhood I became, the more desperately I clung to that other thing.

"So, what do you do?"
"Oh, I'm a writer," and then, as an afterthought, as if it were possible to be an afterthought, "and I stay at home with my kids."

What is it about being a— do I dare to say it? yes, I do— Stay-At-Home Mother that makes me feel ill at ease? I don't feel uncomfortable while I'm doing it, except for those times when there is a tiny finger up my nose, or thirty pounds on my back, or a seemingly interminable shrieking in my ear. And even those aren't as bad as they sound, well, at least, much more tolerable than they sound. It's just when I say it out loud, which I don't, ever. You see, normally, I find comfort in labels. What is not to love about a nice, neatly lettered sticker that tells me exactly where something fits in, like the files in my box or the cans in my cupboard. When everything is where it should be, then I can relax. Only, I don't really want to fit in. In actuality, I require a bit more freedom than that.

When people think I'm a writer, they want to talk to me. When they think I'm a stay-at-home mom, they assume I don't have anything to say. I am reminded of how little we value children. That is really what it comes down to. I remember this from working in childcare. There is very little pay, and very little respect. I was a college student, and was therefore treated a little better because I was going on to do more important things eventually. We think of this kind of work as not really working at all. It's not professional work; basically unskilled labor. In fact, can it really be called work if there is no money involved? And it's not like I'm saving the world. No, just shaping the new one. The thought that my life would have seemingly more value if I went to work everyday and sent my children to be cared for by someone else, is baffling to me. I might be more at ease with that label, but I wouldn't be comfortable.

I have to remind myself that I choose this life. Everyday, I, we, make sacrifices so that our children can have this. So that they can have this foundation, which I feel is essential to who they are. I'm lucky I get to choose. So, really, what's a little identity theft when all of that is taken into consideration?

Originally from blueperiod., on January 30, 2006 06:51 PM

THE BICYCLE FILM FESTIVAL'S WINTER PARTY Anthem and Brendt Barbur are proud to present a party for bikers and their friends. Almost all the Bike Film Festivals sold out in 2005 with fun loving crowds from London to Tokyo....

Originally from hustler of culture, on January 30, 2006 06:50 PM

London is synonymous with high-tea and where better to enjoy a cup or two than [Prêt-à-Portea], the new tea offering from London’s Berkeley hotel. Twice a year, éclairs, French fancies and macaroons are given a makeover inspired by the creations of the world’s top fashion designers. Head pastry chef Oda Weese’s current collection includes a John Galliano-inspired lace mint cake, a Chloé chocolate button slice and Burberry Prorsum ginger boot biscuits. Tea for two has never been so fashionable.

Originally from l-e-mental, on January 30, 2006 06:50 PM

First presented at London’s Royal College of Art, the PixelRoller uses paint or ink to copy onto any surface – be it walls, floors, or grass – a text or pixel-based graphic from the internet, a camera or even a phone. Inventors Stuart wood and Florian Ortkrass of [Random International] sure know how to roll with it.

Seriously impressed. I want one.

Originally from l-e-mental, on January 30, 2006 06:50 PM

Originally posted by djacobs from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on January 30, 2006 06:48 PM

MC Escher-esque satellite photo stich puts buildings at impossible angles right near each other.

Originally posted by mathowie from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on January 30, 2006 06:47 PM

December of 1970 along with Truman Capote and Chicago Bears running back, Gayle Sayers. Both Capote and Sayers participated in the discussion with McLuhan.

Originally posted by kick_out_the_internet_jams from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on January 30, 2006 06:47 PM

Originally posted by defjuan from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on January 30, 2006 06:47 PM

PSP Image Cloud

Unique content was driven through a PSP and split across an array of organically arranged screens.

...Jason Bruges Studio created a chandelier (PSP Image Cloud) with 50 small TFT screens hanging from it. They created video content for a PSP, which was then broken up via a grid on to each of the small screens. The PSP video was then fed into a computer, where Isadora software was used to split the signal into components, through multiple outputs and up to the chandelier. Here are my Flickr Photos and a quick poor quality video (962kb).

Also Playstation promotions staff were on hand to give you a demo of the PSP, plus lending out PSPs to play with exclusive content. Designers Intro were running a workshop studying unconcious explorations of mind mapping and thought patterning. There were animation screenings and short films, plus four literary walks through the V&A organised by Zembla Magazine.

Missed it? BBC2 were filming and will be showing the event on the Culture Show, Feb 16th at 7pm... [blogged by Chris on Pixelsumo]

Originally posted by jo from networked_performance, on January 30, 2006 04:42 PM

I don't want to participate.

I don't want to tag my photos, or rate my movies, or see how many people have been to the same places I have, or build the venn diagram of our friends-in-common. I don't want to know which bar my friends, family or contacts are drinking at right now. I don't want to actually date anyone on Consumating. I don't want to update my mood on my LiveJournal blog and I don't want to update my list of music for you to see.

But I'm glad you do.

I am a lurker.

I look at my friends photos to see where they are. I read Metafilter and don't post. I recently uploaded my first picture to filepile just to see what it was like. I read Best of Craiglist and Missed Connections because they're fun. I enjoy the theater of social networks much more than participating in them. I want plot, I want drama, I want villians, I want the social network equivalent of Roddy Piper hitting Jimmy Snuka in the head with a coconut. Amuse me.

While I enjoy the current push to build social network tools and the current drive to interconnect and mash-up everything on the planet I think (and this is not a number based on any fact, or truthiness) that about 80% of social network activity is done by about 20% of its member base. These are the hardcore participants. The actors, as it were. So what about the other 80%? What are we doing for the people coming to see the show?

Originally from Off the Hoof, on January 30, 2006 04:41 PM

Artist, musician, and video provocateur Nam June Paik past away yesterday, Lunar New Year's Day January 29, 2006. l $NA l Chosun l...

Originally from Archinect.com Feed, on January 30, 2006 03:28 PM

Ok, this has been going around for a while now, and Jason's tagged me, so I'll go:

Four jobs I've had:
1. Pie baker
2. Ice cream maker
3. Management consultant
4. Canoeing counselor at girls summer camp in VT (I worked very hard on my tan that summer)

Four movies I can watch over and over:
1. Old School
2. Office Space
3. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Kahn (KAHN!!!!!!)
4. Ocean's Eleven

Four places I've lived:
1. Buffalo NY
2. San Francisco
3. Cuernavaca Mexico
4. Nearly every neighborhood in "Boston", including Somerville, Medford, the Back Bay, JP, Brookline...

Four Two TV shows I love:
1. American Experience (PBS)
2. Six Feet Under

I really don't watch that much TV. I used to like Seinfeld, but that was a long time ago...

Four places I've vacationed:
1. Kauai Hawaii
2. Nantucket MA
3. Winter Park CO
4. Zipolite Mexico

Five of my favorite dishes:
1. Bread pudding
2. Potato pancakes
3. Lasagne (no meat, no veggies, just cheese, noodles, and sauce)
4. Thomas Keller's torchon of foie gras
5. Nantucket bay scallops

This list is ridiculously short! Five dishes? I could go on to twenty-five, np!

Four sites I visit daily:
1. kottke.org
2. Yahoo! most popular
3. www.flickr.com
4. www.google.com

Five places I would rather be right now:
1. Someplace I've never been, like Italy or New Zealand
2. Jogging through Sanford Farm and Ram Pasture on Nantucket
3. Paris (of course!)
4. Vermont, skiing at Mad River
5. The moon

Four bloggers I am tagging:
1. My running amigo DJ
2. My mom
3. G-Trap
4. You! If you feel like doing this, go for it!

Take that Kottke! "too old school" my ass!

Originally from megnut, on January 30, 2006 03:27 PM

Xeni Jardin:

Roughly 20 protesters from Students for a Free Tibet -- including a number of Tibetan nationals -- gathered in front of Google's headquarters last Wednesday to protest the company's launch of a government-filter-compliant search engine in China. Link, more images here. (Thanks, Telendro)

Paul Boutin has discovered that one way to thwart internet filters is too spel yur serch qweries inkorreckly. Link.

Over at News.com, Declan McCullagh reports that Google.cn not only omits politically sensitive material, but "goes further than similar services from Microsoft and Yahoo by targeting teen pregnancy, homosexuality, dating, beer and jokes." Link

Link to Joy of Tech comic by Nitrozac and Snaggy. (Thanks, Robert)

Here's another comic by Metin Seven: Link.

Reader Comment: Simon says,

Someone on the IP list spotted that the blacklist is case sensitive. Link.

Reader comment: Suomy Anona says,

I saw Googlecompare posted on a blog forum. You enter a search term and it compares the english results to the chinese results then gives you the links that are in the Google.com results but not the Google.cn results. Some of the things blocked (or put miles down in the results) are quite interesting (including BoingBoing's "Photo: lesbian kiss in Tiananmen Square under guards, Mao"). Obviously it is affected both by ordereding of results and complete censorship, but it can check the first 300 chinese results: Link

Originally from My reFeed feed, on January 30, 2006 03:26 PM

Hey, MSDN blogs have started generating Atom 1.0; here’s the IEBlog feed. Good stuff! There are a couple of little glitches: they use rel="self" instead of rel="alternate", and they provide published but not updated timestamps. Both totally forgivable in a 1.0 release, and presumably easy to fix. Take-away: we need to have better tutorial material (others have made the same self/alternate mistake), and to do better at telling the world about the Feed Validator.

Originally from ongoing, on January 30, 2006 03:25 PM

Abraham Lincoln’s Productivity Secret.

Originally posted by tima from tima thinking outloud., on January 30, 2006 03:25 PM

Nam June Paik, pioneering new media artist died Sunday.

Posted to Art

Originally from Stunned, on January 30, 2006 02:45 PM

Sometimes I wonder whether “Getting Real” is a 37Signals plot to eliminate competition through unqualified absolutes masquerading as business advice.

“Why bother with that frumpy old cow, when you can have these magic beans?”

Oh snap! -dj

Originally from tecznotes , on January 30, 2006 02:45 PM

Artist: Santiago

Originally from Wooster Collective, on January 30, 2006 02:44 PM

The Onion interviews Stephen Colbert. "It used to be, everyone was entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. But that's not the case anymore. Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything."

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on January 30, 2006 01:14 PM

Here's the link to Rocketboom's eBay auction for five days of ads. The video blog's reserve opening bid is $500. On any given day, Rocketboom reaches at least 130,000 people per day. This will be interesting to watch.

Originally from BusinessWeek Online - Blogspotting, on January 30, 2006 12:19 PM

Looking for confirmation, but got an email via RHIZOME_RAW that Nam Jun Paik passed away yesterday evening.

Will link to reliable sources when I find them. According to this web site (which says it’s the official Paik web site); it’s true.

Shit. The world has lost a great and influential artist.

There’s an article on MSNBC too.

Below, the entire NYT obit by Roberta Smith.

Nam June Paik, 73, Dies; Pioneer of Video Art Whose Work Broke Cultural Barriers

By ROBERTA SMITH
Published: January 31, 2006

Nam June Paik, an avant-garde composer, performer and artist widely considered the inventor of video art, died Sunday at his winter home in Miami Beach. He was 73 and also lived in Manhattan.

Nam June Paik in 2004 with one of his installations at the Deutsche Guggenheim Museum in Berlin.

Mr. Paik suffered a stroke in 1996 and had been in declining health for some time, said his nephew, Ken Paik Hakuta, who manages his uncle’s studio in New York.

Mr. Paik’s career spanned half a century, three continents and several art mediums, ranging through music, theater and found-object art. He once built his own robot. But his chief means of expression was television, which he approached with a winning combination of visionary wildness, technological savvy and high entertainment values. His work could be kitschy, visually dazzling and profound, sometimes all at once, and was often irresistibly funny and high-spirited.

At his best, Mr. Paik exaggerated and subverted accepted notions about both the culture and the technology of television while immersing viewers in its visual beauty and exposing something deeply irrational at its center. He presciently coined the term “electronic superhighway” in 1974, grasping the essence of global communications and seeing the possibilities of technologies that were barely born. He usually did this while managing to be both palatable and subversive. In recent years, Mr. Paik’s enormous American flags, made from dozens of sleek monitors whose synchronized patterns mixed everything from pinups to apple pie at high, almost subliminal velocity, could be found in museums and corporate lobbies.

Mr. Paik was affiliated in the 1960’s with the anti-art movement Fluxus, and also deserves to be seen as an aesthetic innovator on a par with the choreographer Merce Cunningham and the composer John Cage. Yet in many ways he was simply the most Pop of the Pop artists. His work borrowed directly from the culture at large, reworked its most pervasive medium and gave back something that was both familiar and otherworldly.

He was a shy yet fearless man who combined manic productivity and incessant tinkering with Zen-like equanimity. A lifelong Buddhist, Mr. Paik never smoked or drank and also never drove a car. He always seemed amused by himself and his surroundings, which could be overwhelming: a writer once compared his New York studio to a television repair shop three months behind schedule.

Mr. Paik is survived by his wife, the video artist Shigeko Kubota.

Mr. Paik got to television by way of avant-garde music. He was born in 1932 in Seoul, Korea, into a wealthy manufacturing family. Growing up, he studied classical piano and musical composition and was drawn to 20th-century music; he once said it took him three years to find an Arnold Schoenberg record in Korea. In 1949, with the Korean War threatening, the family fled to Hong Kong, and then settled in Tokyo. Mr. Paik attended the University of Tokyo, earning a degree in aesthetics and the history of music in 1956 with a thesis on Schoenberg’s work.

He then studied music at the University of Munich and the Academy of Music in Freiburg and threw himself into the avant-garde music scene swirling around Cologne. He also met John Cage, whose emphasis on chance and randomness dovetailed with Mr. Paik’s sensibility.

Over the next few years, Mr. Paik arrived at an early version of performance art, combining cryptic musical elements — usually spliced audiotapes of music, screams, radio news and sound effects — with startling events. In an unusually Oedipal act during a 1960 performance in Cologne, Mr. Paik jumped from the stage and cut off Cage’s necktie, an event that prompted George Maciunas, a founder of Fluxus, to invite Mr. Paik to join the movement. At the 1962 Fluxus International Festival for Very New Music in Wiesbaden, Germany, Mr. Paik performed “Zen for Head,” which involved dipping his head, hair and hands in a mixture of ink and tomato juice and dragging them over a scroll-like sheet of paper to create a dark, jagged streak.

In 1963, seeking a visual equivalent for electronic music and inspired by Cage’s performances on prepared pianos, Mr. Paik bought 13 used television sets in Cologne and reworked them until their screens jumped with strong optical patterns. In 1963, he exhibited the first art known to involve television sets at the Galerie Parnass in Wuppertal, Germany.

In 1965 he made his New York debut at the New School for Social Research: Charlotte Moorman, a cellist who became his longtime collaborator, played his “Cello Sonata No. 1 for Adults Only,” performing bared to the waist. A similar work performed in 1967 at the Filmmakers Cinematheque in Manhattan resulted in the brief arrest of Ms. Moorman and Mr. Paik. Mr. Paik retaliated with his iconic “TV Bra for Living Sculpture,” two tiny television screens that covered Ms. Moorman’s breasts.

Mr. Paik bought one of the first portable video cameras on the market, in 1965, and the same year he exhibited the first installation involving a video recorder, at the Galeria Bonino in New York. Although he continued to perform, his interests shifted increasingly to the sculptural, technological and environmental possibilities of video.

In 1969, Mr. Paik started showing pieces using multiple monitors. He created bulky wood robotlike figures using old monitors and retrofitted consoles, and constructed archways, spirals and towers, including one 60-feet tall that used 1,003 monitors. By the 1980’s he was working with lasers, mixing colors and forms in space, without the silvery cathode-ray screen.

For his 2000 retrospective at the Guggenheim Museum, Mr. Paik arranged monitors faceup on the rotunda’s floor, creating a pondlike effect of light and images. Overhead, one of the artist’s most opulent laser pieces cascaded from the dome in lightninglike zigzags — an apt metaphor for a career that never stopped surging forward.

Originally posted by T.Whid from MTAA Reference Resource, on January 30, 2006 12:18 PM

Most of the lukewarm reviews I have read about Terrence Malick's The New World betray a kind of deadening of the intellect, emotions, and attention span that I can only assume is a by-product of reviewers being forced to watch one too many McDonald's commercials masquerading as movies (two and a half stars from the Austin Chronicle? Jesus Marjorie, that's less than you gave The Beverly Hillbillies). The New World has grace and emotional subtlety that is so lacking in today's American cinema that you'd think that people could force themselves to take pause, or at least pop a ritalin and watch with open eyes. I hope the film gives Q'Orianka Kilche a great career as well, because she's phenomenally natural and open with the camera in this film.

Originally from News of the dead, on January 30, 2006 12:18 PM

A new casual puzzler modeled after Japanese arcade games called Bunny Bunny is available for download.

Originally from Macworld, on January 30, 2006 11:48 AM

Over the weekend there was an interesting op-ed in the New York Times by Joseph J. Ellis, Finding a Place for 9/11 in American History. First he questions the threat of September 11 to national security, "in the grand sweep of American history" and finds, "it does not make the top tier of the list." And as such, he questions whether the broad changes to domestic and foreign made in its name are justified. Second, he examines when such changes have been made (e.g. 1789's Alien and Sedition Acts and the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII) and finds:

In retrospect, none of these domestic responses to perceived national security threats looks justifiable. Every history textbook I know describes them as lamentable, excessive, even embarrassing.

It's ridiculous that in the effort to "win" the war on terror, we're scraping the constitutional protections that make America the great country that it is. And as Professor Ellis writes, history will likely show that once again, we've overreacted.

Originally from megnut, on January 30, 2006 11:48 AM

This is clever. girl 32's Smart Glove with removable hooded fingertips on the digits you actually need to use - thumb and forefinger. Now you can make a call or send text messages while keeping warm. Comes in Citrine/Spearmint, Boysenberry/Chocolate, Hot Pink/Bubblegum and Black Licorice. [via Cape Cod Times]

Originally posted by emily from textually.org, on January 30, 2006 11:47 AM

Originally posted by ezrakilty from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on January 30, 2006 10:25 AM

Internet Game Provides Breakthrough In Predicting The Spread Of Epidemics, Report Scientists:



Using a popular internet game that traces the travels of dollar bills, scientists have unveiled statistical laws of human travel in the United States, and developed a mathematical description that can be used to model the spread of infectious disease in this country. This model is considered a breakthrough in the field.
Link

Originally from monochrom, on January 30, 2006 10:25 AM

The Racismomaton is an autonomous computarized cabin that, by means of a computer game, allows passersby to take a test that will unveil his/her implicit attitudes towards foreigners. Attitudes that usually are found under discriminatory behaviours.

Four elements have inspired the design of the installation:

1. Apart from consciously racist people, there are people having racist behaviours without being conscious of it. The hope is that a portion of these "unconscious racists" would change their attitudes after a rational thinking process. Racismomaton intends to be a catalyst for these people to think more deeply about the issue.

2. The process should happen in an strictly private space (hence the photo booth-like design with curtain.)

3. The machine should be autonomous: the installation runs on the street and batteries are charged by photovoltaic cells. Besides, the system regularly sends short messages to state it is working OK.

4. An Implicit Association Test (IAT + PDF) has been developed by psychologists at Washington and Princeton universities. IAT tests unconscious bias that indicate the existence of stereotypes and prejudices that are the basis of racist behaviour. The mechanism is very simple and the test can be completed in less than five minutes.

The Racismomaton has already been installed in several Spanish cities for a few days. I'm afraid other countries need a Racismomaton experience.

By Julio and Íñigo Fernández Ostolaza, aka LaFabricaDeCosasBonitas.
Image Getxo.

Originally from we make money not art, on January 30, 2006 10:24 AM

This is shocking. I don't know anything about modeling, but I always assumed that Anina's phone work raised her profile in a way that was positive for her career.

Originally posted by djacobs from del.icio.us/inbox/djacobs, on January 30, 2006 08:40 AM

Judith lost her camera (and most of her pictures) on her trip to Hawaii, so she's using other people's photos from Flickr to produce a trip journal.

Originally posted by jkottke from kottke.org remaindered links, on January 30, 2006 08:38 AM

Reading Nelson's account of his hatred for his Nintendog reminded me of Mena's new habit of playing Nintendogs every day in the car on the way to work.

Mena bought the Chihuahua version of Nintendogs on December 31, so in addition to Trivial Pursuit, New Years Eve 2006 was marked by the rhythmic, repeated "Augie... Augie... Augie!... Augie", as Mena trained her new Sheltie puppy (named Augie, after her parents' Sheltie). This is the training process: you have to repeat the dog's name over, & over, & over again, until it will respond to commands.

In other words: if you think it's infuriating & repetitive to play the game, try listening to someone play the game. It's much, much worse.

And so the thing is: Mena's now got four dogs. Why so many? Because they're basically puppy prostitutes, working for money, & they can only turn 3 tricks per day, metaphorically (or, actually, quite literally—each dog can compete in only 3 competitions per day).

So Mena's invested her agility competition proceeds in a little army of dogs. Her first was Augie, the Sheltie; she's followed that with Binky, the terrier; Evita, the German Shepherd; and Baby, the King Charles Spaniel. & of course, in a very encouraging Hey-Let's-Get-A-Dog-Ourselves! way, she's quite tired of walking them, feeding them, & cleaning up after them.

Her dogs are, in turn:

• unable to catch a frisbee, because of pathetically short legs (Binky)
• aggressively useless (Evita)
• lethargic & depressed, & just lies around moping [1] (Augie)

Baby is the newest, & Mena's not yet tired of her, apparently.

& the best of all: last night Augie met Alaina's dog Rofl, which meeting unlocked the Shiba Inu puppies at the kennel in Mena's game. Hooray! Another begrudged puppy!

[1] Though apparently he's still quite good in agility competitions.

Originally from Stupidfool.org, on January 30, 2006 08:37 AM

Nam June Paik, the artist who made me like media art, passed away at his Miami home at 8:00pm EST on Sunday, January 29th, 2006.

Originally from we make money not art, on January 30, 2006 08:01 AM

Microsoft executives are discussing their alternative to the $100 laptop: turning a cellphone into a computer by connecting it to a television and a keyboard.

Originally from NYT > Technology, on January 30, 2006 01:36 AM