Archive for June, 2007

The real reason why the world ends in 2012

Published June 30, 2007 in Advertising and Video Games. 0 Comments

OK, so maybe the Mayans didn’t envision the world ending like this, but consider that in 2012 videogames will enter the top tear of ad dollars.

Report: Videogames to Become $2 Bil. Ad Market by 2012:

Among the various videogame advertising tactics that Parks Associates tracks in the report, it’s dynamic in-game advertising – where ads are automatically delivered within games as they are being played – that holds the most potential. The firm expects that dynamic in-game ads (the specialty of firms such as Massive, Double Fusion and others) will account for a whopping 84 of the ad market, versus just 27 percent of the market today.

Quotable: Sir Ken Robinson

Published June 29, 2007 in Art, Education, People, Quotable and Video. 0 Comments


H/T to DK of MediaSnackers for turning me on to Sir Ken Robinson whose views on education and creativity mirror my own. Fortunately he is more articulate than I am, so when you watch him give his TED talk he can explain this big darn mess in much simpler language than I. Click here for his home page.

“We are educating people out of their creativity.”

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Yes Men hacked by Exxon?

Published June 29, 2007 in Tactical Media. 0 Comments

Political pranksters, The Yes Men, were supposedly hacked by Exxon after spoofing them by claiming the oil giant had converted human flesh for fuel. If you go to the dummy site you’ll see various links have been broken or removed.

This it the official words from The Yes Men:

June 28, 2007
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

EXXON HACKS THE YES MEN
Yes Men badly need sysadmin, server co-location

Contact: mailto:people@theyesmen.org

One day after the Yes Men made a joke announcement that ExxonMobil
plans to turn billions of climate-change victims into a brand-new
fuel called Vivoleum, the Yes Men’s upstream internet service
provider shut down Vivoleum.com, the Yes Men’s spoof website, and cut
off the Yes Men’s email service, in reaction to a complaint whose
source they will not identify. The provider, Broadview Networks, also
made the Yes Men remove all mention of Exxon from TheYesMen.org
before they’d restore the Yes Men’s email service.

The Yes Men assume the complainant was Exxon. “Since parody is
protected under US law, Exxon must think that people seeing the site
will think Vivoleum’s a real Exxon product, not just a parody,” said
Yes Man Mike Bonanno. “Exxon’s policies do already contribute to
150,000 climate-change related deaths each year,” added Yes Man Andy
Bichlbaum. “So maybe it really is credible. What a resource!”

After receiving the complaint June 15, Broadview added a “filter”
that disabled the Vivoleum.com IP address (64.115.210.59), and
furthermore prevented email from being sent from the Yes Men’s
primary IP address (64.115.210.58). Even after all Exxon logos were
removed from both sites and a disclaimer was placed on Vivoleum.com
on Tuesday, Broadview would still not remove the filter. (The
disclaimer read: “Although Vivoleum is not a real ExxonMobil program,
it might as well be.”)

Broadview did restore both IPs on Wednesday, after the Vivoleum.com
website was completely disabled and all mention of Exxon was removed
from TheYesMen.org.

While this problem is temporarily resolved, the story is far from
over. Meanwhile, though, two bigger problems loom, for which we’re
asking your help:

1. THE YES MEN’S SERVER NEEDS A NEW HOME.

Broadview Networks provides internet connectivity to New York’s
Thing.net and the websites and servers it hosts, including the Yes
Men’s server. Thing.net has been a host for many years to numerous
activist and artist websites and servers.

At the end of July, Thing.net will terminate its contract with
Broadview and move its operations to Germany, where internet
expression currently benefits from a friendlier legal climate than in
the US, and where baseless threats by large corporations presumably
have less weight with providers. At that time, the Yes Men and two
other organizations with servers “co-located” at Thing.net will need
a new home for those servers. Please write to us if you can offer
such help or know of someone who can.

2. THE YES MEN NEED A SYSADMIN.

The Yes Men are desperately in need of a sysadmin. The position is
unpaid at the moment, but it shouldn’t take much time for someone who
knows Debian Linux very well. It involves monitoring the server,
keeping it up-to-date, making sure email is working correctly, etc.
The person could also maintain the Yes Men’s website (which will be
updated next week), if she or he wants.

Thing.net also needs a sysadmin: someone living in New York who knows
Linux well. The Thing.net position involves some money and the
rewards of working for an organization that has consistently and at
great personal risk supported groups like the Yes Men over the years.

THE YES MEN AND THING.NET THANK YOU!

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Ah-men break

Published June 28, 2007 in Music and Video. 0 Comments


This documentary has been floating around the Internet for a while. It crossed my desk again so I thought I would share it. It’s about the most important drum loop in the history of music.

TV is dead: cell phones to be rated by Nelson

Published June 28, 2007 in Networks, Trends and Video. 0 Comments

This small news item may go down in history as a Rubicon moment. Nelson Company who compiles ratings of US television audiences now considers phones a serious programming outlet that deserves tracking. This confirms my suspicion that television is a transient fact, although I wouldn’t say that it will die. It will just mutate. Just like humans.

Your TV Is Ringing: Nielsen To Track Cellphone Videos - Media on The Huffington Post:

Cellphones are rapidly becoming ubiquitous and the Nielsen Company, the longtime monitor of television consumption, wants in.

Nielsen said yesterday that it had agreed to acquire Telephia, a private company based in San Francisco, for an undisclosed amount. Since its founding in 1998, Telephia has become one of the most respected sources of data about cellphone use — tracking consumers’ phone calling, mobile Web surfing, video viewing and just about everything else. Nielsen has been building mobile tracking products on its own, but Telephia will greatly advance its ability to track media consumption on every screen, Nielsen executives said.

Quotable: Derrick de Kerckhove

Published June 28, 2007 in People, Quotable and Technology. 0 Comments

An Interview with Derrick de Kerckhove, director of the McLuhan Program in Culture and Technology, and author of one of my favorite books on media, The Skin of Culture. He discusses the impact of new technologies on the way we perceive and act in the world.

de Kerckhove Interview - Communication in Evolution - Social and Technological Transformation:

AB: We have left the “global village”, we surf the Web of Webs but the technical abilities of the average citizen are not much greater than those of a Neanderthal. Beneath the veneer of culture, what sort of human being is this digital culture creating?

DdeK: The average citizen is always in Neanderthal mode. That is why we get such Neanderthalian politicians. The digital culture is the cognitive phase of electricity. Just as we took the muscular phase (heat, light and energy) for granted, we are taking this new phase for granted. Most people only worry about how their body works when they have a backache, or about their car when they have to bring it to the garage. And even then, they don’t want to know. But there is hope. The transformation is happening just as surely and unconsciously as it did at the time of the council of Trent when wise people were trying to put an old order into a religion that was being rapidly undermined by a totally new conception of man. Today, we are literally run over by the globalized and connective condition of humankind without the slightest moment of doubt.

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And ‘now this’ from The Spectacle

Published June 27, 2007 in Art, Music and Video Games. 0 Comments

Thus Spoke the Spectacle

Alien vacation

Published June 27, 2007 in Advertising, Fun and Video. 0 Comments

As a fellow New Mexican, I couldn’t pass up sharing this new tourism ad for the Land of Enchantment. Indeed, New Mexico is a great place to “crash.”

Advertising Age:

To underscore its new tagline, ‘New Mexico. It just may be the best place in the universe,’ the state’s tourism office has peopled its new TV ads with extraterrestrials. Dressed as mundane bureaucrats in a nondescript office setting, the ‘Alien’-looking creatures discuss their need to get away from the daily grind to enjoy the recreational virtues of New Mexico. The wonderfully absurd spot was directed by Matt Aselton of Epoch Films.

Crazy for antiwar viral media

Published June 26, 2007 in Activism, Video and War. 0 Comments


Please spread this video ink disease…

Children of war

Published June 26, 2007 in War and Youth. 0 Comments

Children-Of-War
Image link
Two summers ago I was mugged at gunpoint. The experience was terribly traumatic and took a tremendous amount of therapy and meditation to heal from. After that my commitment to nonviolence deepened, and I felt even more strongly that these kinds of traumas are reasons why everyone should be against war. So it saddens me, but also confirms my worst expectations, that the war on Iraq has greatly affected children. The number US casualties is sad enough, but when you factor in the lifelong damage this war is causing for thousands of the survivors, I can’t imagine a single argument that would justify inflicting this kind of psychological pain on anyone. Shame on the warmongers!

The following report explains in more detail how the war is hurting children. It does not mention the broken families of US soldiers, but alas that is another story that needs to be told and amplified to stop this insanity.

Iraqi Youth Face Lasting Scars of War - washingtonpost.com:

In a World Health Organization survey of 600 children ages 3 to 10 in Baghdad last year, 47 percent said they had been exposed to a major traumatic event over the past two years. Of this group, 14 percent showed symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. In a second study of 1,090 adolescents in the northern city of Mosul, 30 percent showed symptoms of the disorder.

Today, toy weapons are among the best-selling items in local markets, and kids play among armored vehicles on streets where pickup trucks filled with masked gunmen are a common sight. On a recent day, a group of children was playing near a camouflage-colored Iraqi Humvee parked in Baghdad’s upscale Karrada neighborhood. One boy clutched a thick stick and placed it on his right shoulder, as if he were handling a rocket-propelled grenade launcher. He aimed it at cars passing by, pretending to blow them up. Two soldiers pointed at the children and laughed.

Many of the children Abdul Muhsin treats have witnessed killings. They have anxiety problems and suffer from depression. Some have recurring nightmares and wet their beds. Others have problems learning in school. Iraqi children, he said, show symptoms not unlike children in other war zones such as Lebanon, Sudan and the Palestinian territories.

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Unlocking the iPhone

Published June 26, 2007 in Activism, Networks and Technology. 0 Comments

Act For Change is calling on consumers to write Apple’s Steve Jobs to free the new iPhone from locking in exclusively with ATT as the sole provider. I agree and think it’s a really bad deal for consumers and a bad precedent for democracy, especially considering ATT’s track record with civil liberties. Monopoly cell contracts have been the bane of my existence and to many around the world. It is disappointing that Apple will contribute further to this uncouth business model. Sign the petition here, and read below for more details.

Take Action: Tell Steve Jobs: Unlock the iPhone!:

On Friday June 29, Apple will release the iPhone, with 3 million units available — seemingly more than enough to match the endless hype. However, if you want to purchase one, you’ll be stuck using it on AT&T. It doesn’t matter that the iPhone could work on other networks — Apple refuses to let that happen.

The iPhone uses technology (known as GSM) that should allow it to work on other wireless networks, including overseas. But Apple has configured the iPhone so you’re forced to use it on AT&T. An iPhone purchased in the U.S. will only work on the AT&T network, regardless of what SIM card is placed in it — it cannot be taken to another GSM network such as T-Mobile.

So, if you’re interested in an iPhone but are turned off by AT&T’s corporate policies — such as turning consumers’ information over to the National Security Agency without warrants, their efforts to wipe out net neutrality, or the close-to-100% Republican giving of their new chairman — you’re out of luck.

It is in fact perfectly legal, according to a recent decision from the U.S. Register of Copyrights, for American consumers to unlock their phones for use on whatever network they would like. Apple is trying to take away that right by locking the iPhone to AT&T’s network.

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Free Paris!

Published June 26, 2007 in Featured Post, News and People. 0 Comments

Paris-Nappy

So, this might surprise you, but I support wholeheartedly the insipid commentary and coverage of Paris Hilton’s prison term. Many in the Left have derided the media for wasting so much time on her, but I find it curious that they are vicariously covering Paris by criticizing the press’ coverage. I think that’s a bit hypocritical. There is nothing wrong with a guilty pleasure such as this.

The chief argument is that when so many people are getting killed everyday in Iraq, why not spend the ink or pixels on the victims of war? Well the problem is that many do not identify with abstract numbers or concepts. They are interested in the drama of people who they are familiar with. One way to address this gap in coverage would be to have more stories on non-glamorous people in war zones. I was disappointed post-9/11 when the New York Times features only profiles of those killed in the Twin Towers and not of those civilians killed in Afghanistan from “our” bombs. No doubt firemen and police officers have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan as a result of our war-making efforts. Would we think differently about war if we identified with the victims of “collateral damage”?

I think it’s worth acknowledging the fact that the new media reality promotes a mythological consciousness. For too long our culture has been bogged down by science and facts to our detriment. Somewhere along the way we lost our bearings and sense of purpose. Now, I don’t particularly agree with the philosophy of our new myths, but let the people speak and have their pop culture too! I worry that media critics are becoming too much like Maoists or Jehovah Witnesses. In my book, personal tragedy and drama is the stuff of life. So maybe it is not as artful as Shakespeare, but I think we can admit that we all get a small thrill by living through others as they destroy themselves. The fact that the high and mighty can fall to Earth is a small reality check for the masses that even the rich and famous are subject to the laws of gravity. The obsession with these particular “debucelebs” has a lot to do with this sense of equanimity.

Incidentally, the above image is of a “pano” (the Chicano vernacular for handkerchief prison art) supposedly created by Paris. These days I don’t believe anything, so I don’t know if she really made it with a smuggled ballpoint pen. But…. if she did it is an interesting commentary on the two things that are her particular lifeline, a phone and being on TV. Compare that with the art made by other prisoners and you’ll discover different themes, often religious, but usually about lost love. Perhaps this is a story about another kind of lost love: the one in the media mirror.

PS Speaking of Mao, there was a faux pas committed by Cameron Diaz when she showed up in Peru with a handbag featuring Mao’s likeness. It’s sad that Cameron was unaware of the tragic history of the Shinning Path movement, and even sadder that she is unaware of Mao’s history. Goes to show the truism that in postmodern times signs are drained of content in order to live on as fashion accessories.

PPS When I originally wrote this I forgot to say that one of the main reasons people are upset about the Pairs phenom is because evening news is having an identity crisis. It used to be that if the authorities from mass media, i.e. Walter Cronkite, spoke the truth about the facts, then democracy would properly thrive. I think people are having a hard time coming to terms with the fact that TV news is entertainment. My advice, get over it and build new models.

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DJ Spooky’s Ghost World Mix

Published June 26, 2007 in Art, Mash-Up and Music. 0 Comments

Spooky

DJ Spooky’s got an interesting project and installation for the Venice Biennial 2007. To explain his approach, he states:

Brian Eno once famously remarked that the problem with computers is that there isn’t enough Africa in them. I kind of think its the opposite: they’re bringing the ideals of Africa. After all, computers are about connectivity, shareware, a sense of global discussion about topics and issues, the relentless density of info overload, and above all the willingness to engage and discuss it all – that’s something you could find on any street corner in Africa.

As for the material comprising the mix, he elucidates:

The “Ghost World” mix is all about the multiple rhythms and languages of Africa, but it makes no attempt to give you everything – it’s from my record collection. That’s why the “story” of the mix is about: polyrhythm, multiplex reality. There’s even more current material, like the Kuduru sounds of Luanda (who says Techno doesn’t exist in Africa!?) and old school hip hop, like Zimbabwe Legit from the early 90’s of classic “conscious” school hip hop. Yes there’s material from Akon, but he gets mixed with Nelson Mandela, or MC Solaar, but I looked for material of his that combined with jazz, so Ron Carter’s brilliant bass playing worked out with that. There’s even material from my favorite South African composer, Abdullah Ibrahim, and vocal outtakes from David Byrne and Brian Eno’s “My Life in The Bush of Ghosts.” Plus various guest appearances by African dictator Idi Amin or the former President of Nigeria, Olusegun Obasanjo talking about democracy in Nigeria.

From Reality Sandwich | Ghost World Mix: A Story in Sound.
You can download the mix here.

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Blade Runner @ 25

Published June 25, 2007 in Film and Sci-Fi. 0 Comments

Bladerunner

So, it turns out Blade Runner turned 25, a film that almost wasn’t made. Thank the Great Whatever that it was, for it remains one of the most near and dear to my heart as the standard of science fiction filmmaking. This is one of those situations that when confronted with such a great work of art, all words fail to capture its immensity. But here are some random thoughts anyway.

I was fortunate to take a class with the Blade Runner’s cinematographer, Jordan Cronenweth, who at the time had severe Parkinson’s Disease. We watched the film shot by shot as he explained the film’s innovative lighting. What sticks out is how often the lights are shooting and strobing through the windows into your eyes, like the ubiquitous police helicopter lights in contemporary Los Angeles.

Apparently William Gibson was so shocked when he saw the film, because its gestalt is so much like Neuromancer, that he had to walk out of the screening.

My favorite detail is the street shot that has the Million Dollar Theater, a Mexican movie house that is still in downtown LA (last I checked) and is actually across the street from the Bradbury Building where the film’s toy maker J.F. Sebastian lived.

At the time I saw it (1982) I was living in LA and just getting into punk. Somehow the movie captured all the sensibilities of our multicultural apocalyptic vision of the city. In particular I love Edward James Olmos’ character, Gaff, whose gruff Zoot Suit demeanor was betrayed by his origami skills. If you haven’t seen the director’s cut (by far the best version), pay special attention to the last scene.
One of the best writings I’ve come across that relates the film to critical theory is David Harvey’s “The Condition of Postmodernity: An Enquiry into the Origins of Cultural Change”. According to him, Blade Runner has these key components:

• Replicants return to earth to find their maker (309) by infiltrating the heart of the apparatus that made them
• Both Deckard and replicants exist in a similar relation to the dominant power of society (Deckard forced out of retirement)
• Hidden bond of sympathy between hunted and hunter (they sace each other’s lives while trying to destroy each other)
• post industrial decay - garbage, infrastructures in varying degrees of disintegration
• scavengers, city-speak, informal labour practices everywhere
• The chaos of signs (311), recycling, explosion of boundaries
• a sense of hidden organizing power - the Tyrell corporation
• Replicants discovered on the basis of no real history
• lack the experience of human socialization
• Photographs represent a real history no matter what the truth of that history may have been.
• Replicant conflict consists of people living in different time scales
• in the end, the difference between replicant and human becomes indistinguishable (they fall in love)

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Digital divide simulator

Published June 25, 2007 in DIY Tools and Truthiness. 2 Comments

Dgital-Divide

Ever wanted to know what it’s like to drive in the Information Highway’s slow lane? The International Centre for Physics has created one so you can see how it feels to be in the losing spectrum of the digital media revolution. Click on the link below to try it out.

ICTP Digital Divide Simulator:

We have elaborated an on-line simulator with which you can experience browsing the web with low bandwidth and compare it with the bandwidth you are used to. To make use of it select the website you want to test, then select the bandwidth you want to simulate, and click “simulate”. You will be presented with two pages: one at full speed and one at the limited speed. You can then compare the two.”

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Two visualizations of the media future

Published June 25, 2007 in Networks, Trends and Video. 0 Comments


An alternate reality? You be the judge…

(click here for other languages)

PS Just in case you missed this one, it’s on the same morphic resonant frequency:

New Mediacology feature: quoatable

Published June 25, 2007 in Ecology, Education and Quotable. 0 Comments

Earth-In-Mind

Because there are so many incredible books that I love containing wisdom worth sharing, I’ll periodically post a quote from a favorite read. If you have any suggestions, please pass them along. This week features a quote from David Orr’s Earth in Mind: On Education, Environment and the Human Prospect.

This quote is from the chapter, “The Coming Biophilia Revolution”:

For our politics to work as they now do, a large number of people must not like any nature that cannot be repackaged and sold back to them. They must be ecologically illiterate and ecologically incompetent, and they must believe that this is not only inevitable but desirable. Furthermore, they must be ignorant of the basis of their dependency. They must come to see their bondage as freedom and their discontents as commercially solvable problems. The drift toward a biophobic society, as George Orwell and C. S. Lewis foresaw decades ago, requires the replacement of nature and human nature by technology and the replacement of real democracy by a technological tyranny now looming on the horizon. (p. 136)

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Closing the gap between child consumers and laborers

Published June 25, 2007 in Brands, Fun, Video and Youth. 0 Comments


From the Onion News

Try marketing to this guy!

Published June 24, 2007 in Marketing, Music and Video. 0 Comments


Just when you thought you were cool…

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U R an information pattern

Published June 24, 2007 in New Paradigm and Video. 0 Comments

RUDY RUCKER and TERENCE MCKENNA hash out time. H/T Spiro.

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