blog politics

I heard a story last night on radio (The World) about censorship and blogs. I guess MSN's blogging service, MSN Space, is complying with Chinese government censors to block blog posts with titles that contain words like freedom, democracy, Taiwan, Falun Gong, etc. Boing Boing has a good article on it (can't believe that Boing Boing is still around!). I think one of the more frightening aspects of this trend, in which corporations like Microsoft and Google cooperate with local governments, is how local "community standards" are impacting the globally published writing that happens on blogs. Who sets those standards? Governments? Does it matter when the government setting the standard is not democratic and its constituents don't have a voice in setting those standards? Besides that, how "smart" is the software that monitors blog posts? Maybe our panoptics are a bit off?

My best flowery windowbox

My best flowery windowbox,
originally uploaded by scmy.

Container garden

Container garden,
originally uploaded by scmy.

Side Garden

Side Garden,
originally uploaded by scmy.

hummingbirds

Did you know that a hummingbird consumes half its weight in nectar every day? I learned this when I got my feeder yesterday. It seems that the garden I have been working so hard on lately actually attracts hummingbirds. This is more by chance than by design. I'm waging a war against weeds too in the most organic way possible, but that's another story involving too much shade, burrs and mosquitos. Here are some photos from the garden--or links to a Flick'r album of photographs of my garden.

Writing went well yesterday--I got a lot done. We took dinner over to Jennifer's and Brian's place and Stephen got to meet the baby. Today I meet with the college computer folks and I hope to resolve yet more laptop problems. Then more writing and trying to keep up the pace.

production, distribution, exhibition

I'm thinking this might be one way of organizing the Digital Theory course. I already have 8 major points of significance in new media--stuff like...
• Do it yourself, document yourself
• Wireless/WiFi
• Surveillance
• Distance/proximity
• Ubiquitous computing
• Gaming
• Cryptography
• Audio/Video & peer-to-peer

But if I add in a layer that organizes things around production, distribution, exhibition I might be able to emphasize continuities with traditional media industries as well as point out the new of new media. I was thinking the other day that it might be fun to write something called "When New Media was New"--a play upon Carolyn Marvin's When Old Technologies Were New.
I went to Erie this weekend. Visited with Dad and Grandma. She's pretty active for a 91 year old. Had a few moments while driving where I wished I was writing b/c such good stuff pops into the brain while in the car. Erie is the same as always--I saw some kind of fire in the woods on Saturday night and that was interesting. I brought back a big chunk of the birch tree from my father's front yard. It fell down in a storm a few months ago. As a child I used to sit up in this tree, which had three trunks. Now I have all that is left of one of the trunks. I hope to seal it and make a stool from it.
This week the goal is to make some serious progress on my chapter and also move forward with my Unlimited Minutes essay. That one is due to the anthology editors in July. Today is a writing/research day.

miracle of life (high speed version)

So I doubt I'm going to get much writing done tomorrow--Jennifer had her baby tonight! And let me just say it loud: My friend is Brave, Strong and Amazing! I saw her go through contractions for a couple of hours and she barely batted an eyelash.
I got the call to come over and stay with Auggie (her three year old) at 4:30. I got here a bit after 5pm. Jennifer and Brian left for the hospital shortly after 7pm. Brian called at 9:41 to say the baby was born at 9:25 pm. It's now 12:30 am and I'm expecting to hear more soon (like a name, birth weight, when they'll be home, etc.). But it is exciting. Steve came with me for the first several hours. We even left for about 45 minutes to get dinner across the street! But Jennifer was cool as a cucumber through it all. I'm guessing most women would have been at the hospital hours earlier.
so there it is. and it has nothing to do with the book.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Zoning Out

Okay, this post is going to start off-topic just a little bit. I've been thinking about "zoning out" a lot lately. Stick with me here. What I mean is that I'm interesting in how willful suspension of disbelief, in tandem with a willful suspension of critical/intellectual engagement actually produces a kind of media knowledge.
Say you go see a movie that is more of a ride than a film (see Bukatman, Matters of Gravity). The narrative and plot are virtually non-existent. Yet the experience is thrilling on a sensory and bodily level (see Sobchack, Carnal Thoughts). Isn't this a kind of knowledge? Moreover, this knowledge is specifically related to visuality and to experiences that address the subject as a body that sees, hears, feels.

It's traditional in critical humanities work for zoning out and for texts that call for it (i.e., The entire Matrix cycle of films, video games, certain genres that rely heavily on special effects and huge leaps of logic, experiences with a specific and diffuse notion of the gaze) to be looked down upon or disregarded as undeserving of critical inquiry. Yet perhaps this new aesthetic and specific reception experience requires a more kinesthetic approach? But I'd also argue that zoning out is linked to zoning in--that such an engagement enables one to develop a critical perspective linked to bodily experiences and sensations. And perhaps this more "base" is necessary for understanding these sorts of media experiences? I'm thinking here of Krauss and Bois' arguments about formlessness and the need to understand the horizontal aspects of modernist art history. Perhaps zoning out resituates how we zone back in?

Tunneling In

So I'm changing my work schedule into one hour work blocks rather than trying to work for three hours at a stretch. Hopefully I'll be more successful at this schedule than the last one.
As I do this I'm reminded of that horrible movie "The Core," which Steve and I watched back in February. In it, Hilary Swank, Aaron Eckhart and a bunch of disposable science-types (Stanley Tucci, Delroy Lindo) get in this frighteningly phallic ship to tunnel to the Earth's core in order to reset the planet's orbit (or some other equally improbable task). Of course on the way to the Core, the phallic ship encounters problems and needs repairs and disposable scientists die left and right. Then Hilary and Aaron save the planet and (aww) find true love. It's all very ridiculous in a blunt metaphor kind of way. If one goes in deeper and deeper, one gets to the middle of things and finds what is needed. Either that or some disturbing ride inside a giant penis that is penetrating the planet, layer by layer. South Park used the plot in the episode where Cartman saves the town from hippies. Same ship and everything.

So maybe writing is kind of like the movie? I just need to dig in, full tilt and not worry about huge gaps in logic or structure, just keep digging, at least for the time being.
Today's dig is another archaelogical expedition--more on TV and early game systems. Very 1970s.