May 29, 2011
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May 28, 2011

Quiet kids…mama’s watching her stories

Count this among the things from my childhood that I totally missed out on: David Lynch directed a TV series! No doubt 10-yr-old-Tim had not yet developed a taste for his filmmaking; no doubt 10-yr-old-Tim would have been traumatized by it, even with Lynch on his prime time made for tv best behavior.
Twin Peaks: part murder mystery, part suspense thriller, and part soap opera, it’s one of the best tv series I’ve ever watched. I’m on the final episode and, if I’m to find a show that rivals this one, looks like I’ll be waiting for the next season of Dexter.

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February 14, 2011
“ Self sufficiency appears to be a worthy goal, but it’s now impossible if you want to actually get anything done. All our productivity, leverage and insight comes from being part of a community, not apart from it. The goal, I think, is to figure out how to become more dependent, not less.
Seth Godin (via kirklove)

(Source: kirklove, via stoweboyd)

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February 3, 2011
Two of my all time favorite novels.  If you ask me, this (our) future is stranger than either of the authors imagined.

Two of my all time favorite novels.  If you ask me, this (our) future is stranger than either of the authors imagined.

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January 8, 2011
sigh…

sigh…

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December 22, 2010

Rabid wolves for justice

Haven’t heard much about this from the news - of course I don’t watch the news much.  It’s a vicious cycle.

Anyone else hear that both Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin have called for the execution of Julian Assange?

Of course, many people are mad at him but what I’m pointing out is that the most vicious responses have come from the leaders of the Christian right, those people who claim to represent the interests of Christians, Christianity, the Church, and Christ himself.  In her book, Palin writes that “…Molding the crooked timber of humanity requires the grace of God”.  In what theology does the grace of God include knee jerk calls for execution?  Is this 2010, or 1692?

I call shenanigans.

In related topics, this from newsweek is a good read.  Pet Cemetery was a good read too.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRxBdnnNDwg&feature=player_embedded#!

http://floridaindependent.com/15935/mike-huckabee-calls-for-execution-of-person-who-leaked-diplomatic-documents-to-wikileaks

http://www.politicususa.com/en/wikileaks-and-the-extreme-hypocrisy-of-sarah-palin

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December 2, 2010
Of the books currently on my nightstand, it is one by Christos Yannaras called “Orthodoxy and the West” that has me wanting to share.  A summary of the book up to this point, about 2/3 through, would be more than I want to type and you want to read, so I’ll just drop the bomb.  This is part of what I’ve been after as it helps make sense of my experience as an evangelical.   Yannaras: ‘Apophaticism differentiates Orthodoxy from the West in clear, striking language.  The West denied the apophaticism of theological expression, understanding truth as the ‘coincidence of meaning with the object of thought.’  It identified the power of knowing truth with the individual’s capacity to understand comcepts, with the capacity for correct thought.  And it shaped a theological language utterly subject this priority of individualistic intellectualism, which is the complete opposite of the Church’s way of expressing truth in apophatic language and images.’

Of the books currently on my nightstand, it is one by Christos Yannaras called “Orthodoxy and the West” that has me wanting to share.  A summary of the book up to this point, about 2/3 through, would be more than I want to type and you want to read, so I’ll just drop the bomb.  This is part of what I’ve been after as it helps make sense of my experience as an evangelical.  

Yannaras:

‘Apophaticism differentiates Orthodoxy from the West in clear, striking language.  The West denied the apophaticism of theological expression, understanding truth as the ‘coincidence of meaning with the object of thought.’  It identified the power of knowing truth with the individual’s capacity to understand comcepts, with the capacity for correct thought.  And it shaped a theological language utterly subject this priority of individualistic intellectualism, which is the complete opposite of the Church’s way of expressing truth in apophatic language and images.’

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September 19, 2010
Great article about facebook, privacy, and the surrounding zeitgeist by Anil Dash: http://dashes.com/anil/2010/09/the-facebook-reckoning-1.html Poignant quote: … let’s be clear, Facebook is philosophically run by people who are extremists about information sharing… What if I weren’t technologically   savvy enough to know how to engage with all of the choices about   public sharing that Facebook forces me to understand?* Among the myriad of issues couched in this article, two very near and dear to my heart intersect in an interesting way: ethics and usability. It’s no secret that the most common criticism of Facebook is it’s privacy policy. Within that criticism is the criticism of the controls available to users to restrict their private information, namely that they are difficult to access and understand; or at least more difficult than necessary.  And this isn’t just my opinion - there’s a UI dark pattern aptly named “Privacy Zuckering.” Those prone to simplified easy-button ethics may point out that fb is providing a service and if you don’t like it, you shouldn’t use it.  Of course the issue is more complicated than that when it comes to constantly changing and completely unregulated intangibles such as privacy and policies that would take several hours to read. Harry Brignol writes about dark patterns - usability patterns intentionally designed to trick users into doing something they wouldn’t otherwise do, and names and shames them at DarkPatterns.org - worth a look. *emphasis mine

Great article about facebook, privacy, and the surrounding zeitgeist by Anil Dash:

http://dashes.com/anil/2010/09/the-facebook-reckoning-1.html

Poignant quote:

… let’s be clear, Facebook is philosophically run by people who are extremists about information sharing… What if I weren’t technologically   savvy enough to know how to engage with all of the choices about   public sharing that Facebook forces me to understand?*

Among the myriad of issues couched in this article, two very near and dear to my heart intersect in an interesting way: ethics and usability.

It’s no secret that the most common criticism of Facebook is it’s privacy policy. Within that criticism is the criticism of the controls available to users to restrict their private information, namely that they are difficult to access and understand; or at least more difficult than necessary.  And this isn’t just my opinion - there’s a UI dark pattern aptly named “Privacy Zuckering.”

Those prone to simplified easy-button ethics may point out that fb is providing a service and if you don’t like it, you shouldn’t use it.  Of course the issue is more complicated than that when it comes to constantly changing and completely unregulated intangibles such as privacy and policies that would take several hours to read.

Harry Brignol writes about dark patterns - usability patterns intentionally designed to trick users into doing something they wouldn’t otherwise do, and names and shames them at DarkPatterns.org - worth a look.

*emphasis mine

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September 7, 2010

A testament to both to the entertainment value of cats and Hans’ Zimmer’s Inception score.  Kind of reminds me of ‘turtle saves dog’ -  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kZdlGJhPhv4 - the soundtrack injects drama.

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August 11, 2010
Im baaack!  And I can hear the sigh of relief coming from the blogosphere .  I have pretty much been on hiatus since we bought our condo.  Upon reflection, I am aghast at the time I’ve spent agonizing over things I once considered absolutely unnecessary and trivial:  the footprint of shelving, matching the scale between sofa and armchair, media storage, tv stand… Now I’m thinking, why do we have to decide these things?  I should not need a tv stand because tvs should be obsolete.  It’s 20 freaking 10, Sony, where’s my holo-deck?  I should walk into my condo and be greeted by Joey and Chandler sitting on my couch, mooching free HBO and bickering like an old married couple.  Good ol’ Joey and Chandler.  Or to a cranky renegade surgeon who wants to perform a colonoscopy through my ear because he’s just. that. good.  Of course at that point I would just change the channel to metalocalypse and play rock band with animated heavy metal comic-genius. Furthermore, why are we still sitting on couches and chairs, hardly any more sophisticated than monkeys perched on stumps?   Sitting is static, passive; sitting is for dogs.  Standing aright is participatory, dynamic.  Standing is for people. Standing in a personal environment apparatus, which allows me to prostrate, levitate, submarine, and teleport AND has a personal beer dispenser:  that is for people of 2010.  It should be. And why, oh why, in 2010, can we not get some traction on the issue of net neutrality?  Perhaps we should have seen the writing on the wall at the beginning of the year when the concept of corporate personhood was reinforced by no less than the Supreme Court.  Now, just over halfway into socially disappointing 2010, Google and Verizon make a pact that places them on the precipice of changing the internet as we know it.  I don’t know but I imagine it’s similar to what happened with radio and television nearly a century ago when a medium of information and entertainment, i.e. utility for the users, was taken over by corporate interests and transformed into medium of advertising.  On these mediums, advertisements for automatic washing machines and vacuum cleaners and toasting appliances promised to increase our health, our sexiness, and leisure time by one billion percent.  The future (robot servants, flying machines) was even brighter.  Then came the the military industrial complex, the bomb, the cold war, out of control Keynesian economics; but tomorrow we’ll live in peace and prosperity…on a space station…of milk and honey!  Or at least have flying cars.  Instead we have American Idol and Desperate Housewives, Pat Robertson, we bailed out one of the most backward and anti-innovating corporations that have ever claimed personhood, and we have let corporate interests threaten what is arguably our greatest collective asset and medium, where the most promising promises for the future will emerge.  You know how I know you’re not a person?  Cause I can’t kick you in the shin.  Eff you Google.  Eff you Verizon.  Sit on it and spin.  It’s like groundhog day.  Except instead of a 24 hour day, its a century.   What a weird rant. edit:  adding some links: The proposal:  http://www.scribd.com/doc/35599242/Verizon-Google-Legislative-Framework-Proposal The Net @ Risk video:  http://www.pbs.org/moyers/moyersonamerica/net/watch.html Thought provoking Smashing Magazine article: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/08/11/the-future-of-the-internet/

Im baaack!  And I can hear the sigh of relief coming from the blogosphere .  I have pretty much been on hiatus since we bought our condo.  Upon reflection, I am aghast at the time I’ve spent agonizing over things I once considered absolutely unnecessary and trivial:  the footprint of shelving, matching the scale between sofa and armchair, media storage, tv stand…

Now I’m thinking, why do we have to decide these things?  I should not need a tv stand because tvs should be obsolete.  It’s 20 freaking 10, Sony, where’s my holo-deck?  I should walk into my condo and be greeted by Joey and Chandler sitting on my couch, mooching free HBO and bickering like an old married couple.  Good ol’ Joey and Chandler.  Or to a cranky renegade surgeon who wants to perform a colonoscopy through my ear because he’s just. that. good.  Of course at that point I would just change the channel to metalocalypse and play rock band with animated heavy metal comic-genius.

Furthermore, why are we still sitting on couches and chairs, hardly any more sophisticated than monkeys perched on stumps?   Sitting is static, passive; sitting is for dogs.  Standing aright is participatory, dynamic.  Standing is for people. Standing in a personal environment apparatus, which allows me to prostrate, levitate, submarine, and teleport AND has a personal beer dispenser:  that is for people of 2010.  It should be.

And why, oh why, in 2010, can we not get some traction on the issue of net neutrality?  Perhaps we should have seen the writing on the wall at the beginning of the year when the concept of corporate personhood was reinforced by no less than the Supreme Court.  Now, just over halfway into socially disappointing 2010, Google and Verizon make a pact that places them on the precipice of changing the internet as we know it.  I don’t know but I imagine it’s similar to what happened with radio and television nearly a century ago when a medium of information and entertainment, i.e. utility for the users, was taken over by corporate interests and transformed into medium of advertising.  On these mediums, advertisements for automatic washing machines and vacuum cleaners and toasting appliances promised to increase our health, our sexiness, and leisure time by one billion percent.  The future (robot servants, flying machines) was even brighter.  Then came the the military industrial complex, the bomb, the cold war, out of control Keynesian economics; but tomorrow we’ll live in peace and prosperity…on a space station…of milk and honey!  Or at least have flying cars.  Instead we have American Idol and Desperate Housewives, Pat Robertson, we bailed out one of the most backward and anti-innovating corporations that have ever claimed personhood, and we have let corporate interests threaten what is arguably our greatest collective asset and medium, where the most promising promises for the future will emerge.  You know how I know you’re not a person?  Cause I can’t kick you in the shin.  Eff you Google.  Eff you Verizon.  Sit on it and spin.  It’s like groundhog day.  Except instead of a 24 hour day, its a century.  

What a weird rant.

edit:  adding some links:

The proposal:  http://www.scribd.com/doc/35599242/Verizon-Google-Legislative-Framework-Proposal

The Net @ Risk video:  http://www.pbs.org/moyers/moyersonamerica/net/watch.html

Thought provoking Smashing Magazine article: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/08/11/the-future-of-the-internet/

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