Hell's Half Acre

warning technorant: screw you Open Source

this is why people stay away from open source.

http://www.mozilla.org/build/distribution.html

I'm trying to load in an add-in for Firefox. . .a javascript debug tool. I am following link after link trying to get a simple set of installation instructions but apparently, open source doesn't work like that. First I need to compile a Mozilla, then I need to compile an installer. Then I can compile the add-in and install it or something of that nature. It took like three web pages to get that convoluted info and then I go to square one (above) and by the time I get to list item number 1, I realize that this is already talking about a set of tools that I don't fucking use.

So all you fucking firefox open source jackoffs can kiss my ass. I'm trying to do a job here and your stupid worthless shit only serves to annoy and waste my time. fuck off.

franklin and the rape horn

I'm spending way too much time on youtube

pd this is for you

my new toy

Get ready for this:

And by the way, don't forget your Airhorn Protocol.

google print project redux

didn't they say somewhere back in their rhetoric last spring that they weren't going to allow for full versions of books to be downloaded? I need to go back and check my research. Anyways, here's what they are saying now.

Google Offers Book Downloads
In an expansion of its controversial project, Google will allow people to download and print out entire books. read the article. . .

so as long as they stick with the public domain works they are not in violation of copyright law. It seems like there are so many ways to twist fair use policy though. . .Google has already tried bending the rules by putting the onus on book publishers to Opt-out of their print program rather than obtaining permission from the copyright holders BEFORE scanning the books. They are following the web crawler model where a webmaster opts-out of being indexed by search engines.  If a webmaster doesn't opt out or doesn't KNOW that they need to opt out, they get sucked into the Googleverse index.

Google had a lot of balls to think that current copyright laws do not apply in their print project but I guess that is still to be settled in court.

viacom and MTV embracing convergence culture

http://www.pcworld.com/article/id,126961-page,1-c,onlineentertainment/article.html

I love this part:

Viacom Responds to Web Threat
The planned service is perhaps the clearest indication yet that MTV's parent company, Viacom International, takes the Internet and the potential threat that it poses to TV viewing seriously.

"While our history has been focused on TV, there is no doubt that our future will belong to digital" and the merger of content with new delivery platforms such as the Internet, Roedy said. "We are no longer a TV-centric company. While we have led in TV over the last 25 years, we are now poised to lead in digital."

balding boardroom exec says: "there is no doubt. . .that our future. . .will belong to digital. . ."

the krixfort response team writes: Jesus, you should have been thinking that way in 1999. The future is here already.

a gentle reminder from zod's minion

convergence culture plus beige overload

yes. hello. I am here. somewhere. Buried in a book called Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. This book examines the relationships between producers and consumers in the new media economy. It indirectly, and perhaps unknowingly, extends the idea of the market as a conversation that was posited in The Cluetrain Manifesto.  Convergence Culture covers topics from collective intelligence, to transmedia storytelling, to the push-pull relationship of appropriation from folk culture to mass culture and back again, all of which is affecting and being affected by the internets.

Knowledge communities are built up around mass entertainment as divergent groups come together to collectively solve problems, as innocuous as who will win the next episode of Survivor. The author, Henry Jenkins, points out that although these groups may be addressing a trivial matter, it is how they use the internet as a tool to create collective intelligence. It is also how, as time passes and more people become comfortable using the tools through their entertainment, they will begin to use the tool in other ways: to converse, to establish community, to gain consensus, and to pool knowledge. 

Transmedia storytelling refer to works that are being told over a variety of media so that the separate parts of the story make a larger whole. Jenkins uses The Matrix as an example. Apparently pieces of the larger story were devloped in other media such as animated films, comics, and video games. The stories contained in these media are pieces that were alluded to in the three movies but never fully explained. If a user/viewer chose to chase down all of the pieces, they would end up encountering a richer story telling experience.  A cynical look at this idea would immediately infer that transmedia story telling only serves to line the pockets of the media conglomerates, but if you look at from a more innovative standpoint, transmedia story telling, if done well, is a provocative way to dig into the depths of a story in a way that has never before been supported by the traditional uni-media vehicles.

The most interesting chapter speaks about folk culture vs mass culture and how both have borrowed from each other cyclically. Before Mass Media, stories, songs, and ballads were passed around from person to person and from place to place, in many cases losing their singular owners. Mass media borrowed heavily from folk culture and provided its audiences with slicker product. Folk stories and folk songs were displaced because their audience was whisked away by mass culture. But, folk culture never completely died. The book uses amatuer filmmakers as a great example. Home movie flourished underground, literally in some basements, but with limited audiences. The technological barriers to entry for amatuer filmakers were high until the advent of the handheld video camera. Hardware costs came down, software became more sophisticated and easier to use. It became possible over time for a film hobbyist to have a complete film studio in his/her home. The internet brought better tools for distribution: broadband, hosting sites, and client software, enabling internet viewers to watch these films. Now amatuer filmakers have access to mass audiences and access to feedback. They also have more access to digital media assets presented by the mass media; cultural artifacts of the current generation. More and more amatuer film makers appropriate imagery from mass culture, as mass culture pulled from folk culture in the past. As the pull from the folk culture spreads, media companies struggle in the fight to protect their "intellectual property", either by incorporating the efforts of amatuer film makersinto their own marketing strategies or by striving to shut down production.

It's an odd and sometimes contentious relationship between producers and consumers and it's hard to know where the line is drawn. If media companies use things like fan fiction and fan films to promote their brands, who is the consumer then? Regardless, what this book illustrates is the need for media companies to open up the conversation, as we move away from simple interactivity to participation in our own media culture.

And I'd like to sock the academy. . .

My newest brilliant idea that I won't follow through on is this:

Amatuer film recreating classic scenes from movies shot for shot with a cast of sock monkeys. Original dialogue looped in.

My first endeavor will be the opening scene from Quentin Tarantino's masterpiece, Resevoir Dogs. If I can't get enough equity sock monkeys, I will expand casting to other other toys. I mean how could you go wrong with a cast like this?

 

I just can't get enough

Nouvelle Vague has a new one out. Here's what other music has to say about it:

Nouvelle Vague's debut album was one of those rare occurrences when a covers concept actually provides the listener with interesting new takes on old songs. It was an exercise in applying a fresh spin on two forms of music (punk and bossa nova) that have historically suffered from nostalgic posturing from many an artist in the past. With this album, we see the band applying the "if it ain't broke" philosophy, sticking with the mellow covers of old punk/new wave tunes formula. This time around, however, they branch out a bit more stylistically from the bossa template with overall positive results. Their torchy, string-drenched take on Heaven 17's "Let Me Go" and the spooky orchestrated version of "Bela Lugosi's Dead" benefit nicely from a bigger recording budget. The cabaret versions of "Dancing with Myself" and "Heart of Glass" are interesting experiments, but they don't completely satisfy. Then again, it's pretty hard to make those wedding reception floor burners sound relevant again. But overall, I think Nouvelle Vague are at their best when they keep it simple, fragile and barebones, as evidenced by their lovely version of the Buzzcocks' "Ever Fallen in Love."

mmm mmm good.