Saturday, November 08, 2008
Cory Doctorow on Copyright Reform
Cory Doctorow’s essay: Why I Copyfight.
There’s a word for all the stuff we do with creative works — all the conversing, retelling, singing, acting out, drawing, and thinking: we call it culture. Culture’s old. It’s older than copyright.
...
The existence of culture is why copyright is valuable. The fact that we have a bottomless appetite for songs to sing together, for stories to share, for art to see and add to our visual vocabulary is the reason that people will pay money for these things.
...
The reason copyright exists is because culture creates a market for creative works. If there was no market for creative works, there’d be no reason to care about copyright. Content isn’t king: culture is. The reason we go to the movies is to have something to talk about.
Article topic notwithstanding, it was hard not to copy/paste every elucidating sentence.
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
The Future of Google Book Search
Huzzah! (via Richard @ SoftSkull) Google announces its 3-year lawsuit is settled. Soon, we can expect more books and greater functionality from Google Books.
I’d love to write more about this. As I’ve wanted to post something every day. I suck at the busy-busy. No time for love, Dr. Jones.
Sunday, October 12, 2008
This Still Hurts
For my first attempt at “narrative embroidery” I used a couching stitch, in which I tacked down loose loops of thread with stitches rather like tiny railroad ties to try to replicate my hand writing. I dotted the is with French knots. Lots of figuring things out as I went (the upper line was done after the lower line).
I think an embroidery hoop would have helped, but that does look an awful lot like my handwriting. The actual size of the photo is the actual size of my hand — this was originally a trace of my hand and writing done in disappearing blue ink.
19th Century typesetting, w00t!
Backstory:
Two years ago I injured myself where the pinky connects to the hand. I wore a custom splint and had physical therapy for 3 months, but it never quite healed, probably because I couldn’t stop typing and remain employed as a web developer.
Many important keyboard buttons are hit with the pinky: shift, copy/paste, options, tab, the letter a, for example. I retrained myself to use the ring finger, but I believe the constant tension, wiggling, and flexing prevented healing, as the splint was designed to keep things aligned so they could re-stitch themselves back together. So, every day, especially when I’m quite busy and typing fast (writing or developing), I am distracted by this constant pain that makes me want to pout and whine with frustration. Sometimes, I just have to write by hand, but it’s not an option 99% of the time.
And you can just forget about getting past medium on Guitar Hero - no pinky extensions for me. It’s a crying shame!
“Stitch and Bitch” is right. I feel somewhat better now that I made this, but it still feels like iron filings and loose wires are burning in my left hand. Bitch, bitch, bitch.
Having a broken camera also sucks. This is a scan of my first attempt at “narrative embroidery."
Tuesday, September 09, 2008
What's Not to Love?
Last night was my first writing workshop with Jonathan Ames.
And that 1a.m. weepy bourbon-soaked tweet was purely of the “holy crap how did life get so amazing?” variety.
marshmallow = me.
Write anything more and I’ll just embarrass myself.
Monday, September 08, 2008
Personism
A good word, and a great blog. Fauxcabulary.com — my slow and steady accumulation of newly formed words that reflect the changing things we need to describe before they’ve officially been coined — got a nice mention on Personism today. Teehee, she said it was “charming.”
Consider my day made.
The Fauxcabulary link is in good company. Do check out the House Industries video link about spelling, presented flip-book style by 102 year-old Ed Rondthaler.
Elsewhere, lots of rehashing of the NYT article about “ambient intimacy” and human closeness in the age of digital networking. Finally, it explains the appeal of twitter (and the cumulative building over time) better than anything else I have read, particularly that you can’t just read a page-full of updates once or twice and get the point of twitter, “Yet it is also why it can be extremely hard to understand the phenomenon until you’ve experienced it. Merely looking at a stranger’s Twitter or Facebook feed isn’t interesting, because it seems like blather. Follow it for a day, though, and it begins to feel like a short story; follow it for a month, and it’s a novel.”
Me, I dig the ambient intimacy.
Friday, September 05, 2008
In My Country, We Do Not Burn Books
Everyone likes mayors who threaten to fire librarians who do not “fully cooperate” with their book burning plans.
I’m hoping this lady doesn’t stick around long enough for society to coin phrases like “beyond the Palin.”
AT&T cooperated with illegal governmental pressure, and look how well that went.
You know, the Nazis had pieces of flair.
I Bruise Like a Grape
When Daffy Duck repeatedly said, “Watch it, I bruise like a grape,” my skeptical young mind was troubled by the “like a grape” part. Bananas and apples were far less reliable than grapes in my book. With grapes, your primary concerns would be choking and eating seeds.
[In case of choking on a grape alone in the kitchen because you came home from the pool for a quick snack and tossed one into your mouth like you’ve seen your big brothers doing: immediately stop trying to breath, throw your ribs over the back of a kitchen chair, and simultaneously cough hard. Rejoice that you have fabulous instincts for beating death. Tell no one.]
You could say I bruise like a grape. Tickle me and you’ll find fingerprints, but technically I’m more like a peach. My bruises are so regular and colorful I’ve started appreciating them like sunsets.
From a distance, everyone thought my tae kwon do bruises were tattoos.
Indeed, armfuls of deep and serious bruising are what ultimately made me go from never wanting tattoos to wanting these bruises, these livid colors, on me forever. I liked how those TKD bruises felt like they signified something more than my inability to navigate a 3 dimensional plane.
As much as I love the color of bruises I’d probably avoid that final yellow, opting more for the bright blues, greens, purples, and pinks of a 2 or 3 day old injury. Now just how to weave those colors into the imagery I’d want.
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Handmade Nation
The Movie:
“Handmade Nation documents a movement of artists, crafters, and designers ... historical techniques, punk, and DIY (do it yourself) ethos ... influenced by traditional handiwork, modern aesthetics, politics, feminism, and art. Handmade Nation explores a burgeoning art community that is based on creativity, determination, and networking.”
Wow.
