December 13, 2005
on Failure
"F Minus!"
That was (Dr) Tony DeRitis' favorite exclamation for whenever some sleep-deprived student made a dumb comment — and don't let your elementary-school teachers fool you, there are such things as dumb comments and questions. This semester I haven't really been studying Interactive Telecommunications so much as failure. This is 50% tongue in cheack, 50% desperate gallows humor, and 20% damn-serious wisdom — perspicacity. Capstone made sure I knew the taste of failure, and graduation allowed me to deal with it. Acadamia is for failure —l and that's its greatest success. Savvy? I'm not afraid to try new things — things I know little to nothing about. Java? MAX/MSP/JITTER? MySQL? Video tracking? Chroma-keying? But the actual result means nothing — as compared to the process. I find this true not just in acadamia, but in the professional world as well. The cliche "say whatever you want about me and my work, just say it" entertains the most important value in any business. Theres small difference in fame and notoriety. I'd fail any day, so long as my goal + work-ethic was proportionally greater. Zero-sum game.
So stop saying 'it's okay, you'll do better next time.' Because it's okay, you'll do better next time. Blue skies are ahead.
Posted by alex at 11:30 PM | Comments (0)
October 27, 2005
Semi-Organized Vignettes [mostly] on Why the Internet Sucks
Its no secret that the internet sucks. But articulating just what sucks about the actual 'internet,' or world wide web and what its used for is tough to finger. The conceptual nature and the 'physical' structure of the internet are two entirely different entities, each capable of unique existence and purpose. This also characterizes the internets two categories of shortcomings - technological and not (largely social, psychological, even philosophical). I was speaking with a friend over AIM, when the subject of this essay came up. She said "the internet sucks because it makes people lazy." I replied, "thats asinine." Still, this exemplifies most peoples' thoughts on technology and the internet - the mass cognitive dissonance that humanity resonates with. The internet is a phenomenal tool that has enormous - infinite potential - to aide human existence, production, advancement, progression, etc.
Its no secret that the internet sucks. But articulating just what sucks about the actual 'internet,' or world wide web and what its used for is tough to finger. The conceptual nature and the 'physical' structure of the internet are two entirely different entities, each capable of unique existence and purpose. This also characterizes the internets two categories of shortcomings - technological and not (largely social, psychological, even philosophical). I was speaking with a friend over AIM, when the subject of this essay came up. She said "the internet sucks because it makes people lazy." I replied, "thats asinine." Still, this exemplifies most peoples' thoughts on technology and the internet - the mass cognitive dissonance that humanity resonates with. The internet is a phenomenal tool that has enormous - infinite potential - to aide human existence, production, advancement, progression, etc.
All said, the WWW/internet/whatever [is and] is not a physically substantial entity. The digital medium is abstract - representative - not subject to the constraints of physical reality, yet somehow given subjective and fluctuating value. The abstract needs an interface - or an interface to the interface. . There must be something that allows one some way to create something completely inhuman, outside our scope. Of course, this is not the ends, as any media must not to exist in and of itself, for the sole purpose of existence. the assigned mode and modus must be proactive. It should be treated as Plato's perfect circles - Aristotelian. Exchange 'hypertext' for 'hyper-context.' I understand current bandwidth constraints, but preparation should be underway to cycle in the new media.
Still, there needs to be a 'geography'. This geography would of course be dynamic - slave to the specific instant.
Whenever immersive computing comes up, I immediately think of Flatland (Abbott). Geometric entities sliding around a plane [read monitor screen] according to The Rules. The digital network requires a new science - a new geometry - Multidimensional and liquid.
Tagging is a valiant effort to tame the hodgepodge, but is not nearly adequate. The future of tagging lies in spammers tagging the hell out of lots and lots of crap. True, this abuse can be accounted for, to some extent, by algorithms... but it is an imperfect solution - like most things, looking at a symptom (quick fix) and not a cure for the actual ailment.
Artificial Intelligence is almost necessary for real functionality. Intelligent parsing. At least intelligent algorithms for data mining - subjective classification / learning. virtual archivists. Artificial intelligence is a scary term - as people relate it to artificial human malignant intelligence. Simple answer - don't model it after humans. Intelligence can be easily limited and controlled. William Gibson's concept of an electromagnetic shotgun wired to the AI head is but a crude base. Artificial intelligence in this sense is not new at all, as it existed before the internet, before even affordable and accessible personal computers. Artificial intelligence can be as simple as a contrived anti-entropy device. [note Norbert Weiner's work].
The concept of the online avatar should be reversed. What is a human body but a meat-puppet chugging along to commands from your brain? Of course, its more complicated than that, but essentially, your consciousness rents a flat in a big semi-soft blob to get around and communicate and procreate. Give your brain a nice metal exoskeleton with unfathomable reflexes... better yet, just forget the physical. What's a nervous system but a conduit for interrelated electrical explosions? But that wouldn't be human, would it? It all comes back to metaphysics.
Concepts of ownership need to be modified. Commodity-centric economic systems have no room for 1s and 0s. The struggle for intellectual property. Intellectual property is ethereal, a future-primitive specter. Collage production. This isn't a new concept, at all. But now, people can create ~exact 'copies' of existing works - with very little resource expenditure. Such a readily-available spring-board for creation brings the factories to the home - the personal space, equipped with a computer, ethernet, and Red Bull - a new age of cottage industry - yet so much more. A global cottage industry.
Self-expression is a vehicle for development and innovation. The same thing was done in the industrial revolution, but now intellectual property is being abused, etc. The living conditions are better, etc. Bottom line - harnessing masses of 'creative' youngsters - the pop-cultures.
The pop-science documentary 'What the Bleep do we Know' brought up some interesting thought regarding human perception of purely new/unfamiliar phenomena. The example from the film explained that the Native Americans couldn't see the explorer's ships - since they were completely outside their frame of reference. The shamen / medicine men were the only people able to actual view the ships, until the images had time to sink in for the other members of the tribes. And thats where I fell asleep. But I wonder, would this still be the case with people today? Free time is a commodity, beauty is a real commodity. Both of these are relatively new phenomena. Appreciation and empowerment. I would like to think that I, personally, would be able to see something completely different and new - if only because I've been exposed to so many abstract concepts. This extends to a huge amount of people in society today - the age of artistry. Self-expression is valued more than ever, and available to boot, largely due to the digital publishing revolution. Technological advancement seeks to fill a glass. The glass is infinite, the liquid is infinity.
Posted by alex at 10:19 AM | Comments (0)
October 25, 2005
Vernacular Press online.
After much editing, debugging, and temper-tantrums, the new and much improved Vernacular Press site is online. Hopefully it works in your browser. Hopefully you will holler at me if it doesn't.
Working on a new site for the Vernacular book Categories—On the Beaty of Physics. Its shaping up to be pretty cool, loads of designery, dynamic coolness.
Posted by alex at 12:59 PM | Comments (1)
October 20, 2005
Cognitive Dissidents
Intellectual property. What the hell is it? 1s and 0s have no tangible meaning. You cant touch binary. Seems these days, every thought eventually leads to this. The paradigm shift into further abstraction. Spinoza thought that GOD was in everything - or more appropriate, GOD GOD GOD GOD. which is equally inaccurate. Borges refernces this in his work Labyrinths - the discussion of Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius. This invented people have no concept of individuality, "All men who repeat a line from Shakespeare are William Shakespeare."
Tie this into the Selfish Gene. Tie it into Socialist Existentialism. Digital life is approximating Plato's concept of the perfect circle - existing in the mind. What is the abstraction, reality? But I wax poetic.
So what does this have to do with derivative culture? (if you haven't been able to follow thus far, then perhaps you should think more like me). Theres no escaping sample-based innovation. And I'm sure too many people have done a poor job explaining why, so I'll not contribute.
Please look up 'solipsist.'
This entry was published [unfinished] to demonstrate a universally available ability to put out stuff... right...
I promise these thoughts will be given flesh at a later point in time.
Posted by alex at 01:10 AM | Comments (0)
October 13, 2005
Reaction to a Post-Modern, Marxist-Existential Era
My little house of cards almost collapsed all over the table when I opened Sartre's Search for a Method. I had considered myself an existentialist. I was ignorant, obtuse. I'm still ignorant, obtuse. Sartre marries Existentialism with Marxism. The labels don't matter so much as the feeling of evolution. I was instantly struck by the fickle abstraction of linearity and how it defines progression.
Issues of linear progression are immensely important. Self-described media critics examine the concept of 'real-time' with scornt. "Real-time," they say, "is waiting in line at the grocery store. How is that any different from waiting for an NSYNC mp3 to download?" The reality of the situation: Apples and Oranges. Yes, what these critics deem REAL is the many named communal hallucination that is human existance. The collective nature of existence - consiousness - is glaringly obvious.
Media consiousness. Pop culture. Assimilation. Globalization. Our little flatland is seething with recursion - hardwired into our DNA. But the individuals stand out. What does this mean? In some ways, we are all the individuals. Andy Warhol's 15 heartbeats of fakery. The cellular bastardization of the prophet. Oracles are knighted, sanctified - so that every single living cell/human/individual/man can be that.
I know everything. I am everything. The siamese twins Aristotle and Spinoza. The collective unconsious is everything. But its not unconsious - but existence.
And now the post-modernist will stand up and mutter, "but we still have to pay the car insurance."
Posted by alex at 12:44 AM | Comments (1)