a blind flaneur

Attention Economy – January 27, 2012

Posted on January 27, 2012 by Mark Willis

Approaching Isle Royale in winter snow and fog. [Photo by John Vucetich/via
Wolves of Chippewa Harbor Pack following their alpha male. [Photo by John Vucetich/via

In Winter Weather, Flying to Find Wolves – NYTimes.com 012012

John Vucetich, a wildlife ecologist from Michigan Technological University, leads the wolf-moose Winter Study at Isle Royale National Park.

Vucetich Discusses Long-Running Predator-Prey Study : NPR 012612

Melissa Block speaks with John Vucetich, a wildlife ecologist from Michigan Technological University who is leading the wolf-moose winter study at Isle Royale National Park. The park is located in the northwest corner of Lake Superior. The study is in its fifth decade.

In Broadway’s ‘Wit,’ A Documentary Of Our Demise : NPR 012612

In her dressing room at the Friedman Theatre, Sex and the City star Cynthia Nixon has a nightly ritual: She rubs Nivea cream all over her scalp to soothe the razor burns. Being completely bald is just one of the many demands of the character she plays in Wit — a brilliant college professor named Vivian Bearing, who’s battling ovarian cancer. “She talks so much; she’s verbose,” Nixon says. “She talks in such an erudite and complicated way. She’s bald, she’s naked and she’s dying in a slow, excruciating way. There’s a lot! There’s a lot of virtuosic elements of the play.” Not least of which is that, for much of the play, Vivian speaks directly to the audience — a device that’s established at the outset, when she walks onstage in a hospital gown and a red baseball cap, pushing a portable IV drip.For the next 90 minutes or so, Bearing bares herself in this unflinchingly honest and, yes, very witty play.

Newt Gingrich’s Three Marriages Mean He Might Make A Strong President — Really | Fox News 012012

Hmmm… let’s hope Byelorussia wants to marry Newt!
Keith Ablow: “You can take any moral position you like about men and women who cheat while married, but there simply is no correlation, whatsoever—from a psychological perspective—between whether they can remain true to their wedding vows and whether they can remain true to the Oath of Office….So, as far as I can tell, judging from the psychological data, we have only one real risk to America from his marital history if Newt Gingrich were to become president: We would need to worry that another nation, perhaps a little younger than ours, would be so taken by Mr. Gingrich that it would seduce him into marrying it and becoming its president. And I think that is exceedingly unlikely.”

Stanford Takes Online Schooling To The Next Academic Level : All Tech Considered : NPR 012312

Last year, Stanford University computer science professor Sebastian Thrun — also known as the fellow who helped build Google’s self-driving car — got together with a small group of Stanford colleagues and they impulsively decided to open their classes to the world. They would allow anyone, anywhere to attend online, take quizzes, ask questions and even get grades for free. They made the announcement with almost no fanfare by sending out a single email to a professional group. “Within hours, we had 5,000 students signed up,” Thrun says. “That was on a Saturday morning. On Sunday night, we had 10,000 students. And Monday morning, Stanford — who we didn’t really inform — learned about this and we had a number of meetings.”

Movie Review – ‘Coriolanus’ – A People’s Hero Takes To Politics : NPR 012012

Ralph Fiennes’ directorial debut adapts Shakespeare’s Coriolanus, about a Roman general with his eye on political office. Critic David Edelstein says that in Fiennes’ hands, the modern-day update makes for thrilling moviegoing.

Mexican Cousins Keep Romney’s Family Tree Rooted : NPR 012212

Hispanic voters are a key group in the presidential race, and Republican hopeful Mitt Romney has been reaching out to them. Should he tell them that he himself is the son of an immigrant from Mexico? Romney’s father, George, was born in the state of Chihuahua, in a colony of polygamous Mormons. Romney rarely speaks about the Mexican branch of his family, and he’s never visited his numerous cousins south of the border — but the Romneys of Mexico are all rooting for him.

‘Fresh Air’ Interview: ‘The Real Romney’ By Michael Kranish And Scott Helman : NPR 011912

Longtime Boston Globe reporters Michael Kranish and Scott Helman start their biography of Mitt Romney by examining his ancestors, many of whom played crucial roles in the development of the Mormon faith. The Real Romney also examines the candidate’s political beliefs and his career in private equity.

Posted in attention economy | Tagged attention, curation, Isle Royale, links, wolves | Leave a comment

“The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders”

Posted on January 7, 2012 by Mark Willis

Daniel Defoe wasn’t pilloried for writing Moll Flanders, though doubtless many thought he should have been. Humiliation in the stocks, depicted above, was Defoe’s recompense for penning a satirical religious tract in 1703. When Moll Flanders was published in 1722, Defoe’s name was discretely left off it, and 50 years would pass before the novel was attributed to him in print. There may not have been room for it on the title page, which read in full:

The Fortunes and Misfortunes of the Famous Moll Flanders, Etc. Who was born in Newgate, and during a life of continu’d Variety for Threescore Years, besides her Childhood, was Twelve Year a Whore, five times a Wife (whereof once to her own brother), Twelve Year a Thief, Eight Year a Transported Felon in Virginia, at last grew Rich, liv’d Honest and died a Penitent. Written from her own Memorandums

I confess, Moll has kept me up past my bedtime three nights in a row! Where’s Kim Novak when I need her? I’m reading as lively a version produced by the Library of Congress (NLS). Narrated by Barbara Caruso, that audiobook is available only to blind readers, so I can’t share it here. Nonetheless, you can listen to Moll, too, via a LibriVox audio book that is freely available in the public domain, as an MP3 download or a live stream:

To this audio player, LibriVox adds the note: “We are not able to offer a simple piece of HTML to show the playlist along with the player.” For that, see the webpage.

Daniel Defoe sources: Wikipedia | Project Gutenberg | Internet Archive | LibriVox

About the image: Daniel Defoe in the pillory, 1862 line engraving by James Charles Armytage after Eyre Crowe. [Source: Wikipedia]

Posted in Playing by Ear | Tagged 18th century, audio, books, Daniel Defoe, LibriVox, Moll Flanders, public domain | Leave a comment

Attention Economy – January 6, 2012

Posted on January 6, 2012 by Mark Willis

An Amazing Trickeration?: Banished Words For 2012 : NPR 010112
During the 2011 MTV Video Music Awards in Los Angeles on Aug. 28, 2011, singer Beyonce Knowles rubbed her stomach in the middle of the performance to reveal her baby bump. “Baby bump” is one of the words on Lake Superior State University’s list of banished words this year.
How A Teen’s Coerced Confession Set Her Free : NPR 010212
In that room, Truong will admit to suffocating her son. She’ll be arrested and she’ll spend almost three years awaiting trial for murder. But a videotape that police made of that interrogation, which NPR member station WBUR fought in court to obtain, will eventually set her free.
How Fracking Wastewater Is Tied To Quakes : NPR 010512
Small earthquakes in Ohio and Arkansas associated with hydraulic fracturing for natural gas have taken many people by surprise. Gas industry executives say there’s no hard evidence that their activities are causing these quakes. But some scientists say it’s certainly possible; in fact, people have been causing quakes for years.
Quakes Jeopardize Ohio City’s Economic Recovery : NPR 010512
There is a natural gas drilling boom going on in Youngstown, Ohio. But a series of earthquakes there has renewed focus on activities like drilling and mining that are known to cause earthquakes. Now people in the area are weighing safety over economic growth.
‘Thin Blue Line’ Piqued Mike Mills Movie Interest : NPR 010312
Steve Inskeep talks to filmmaker Mike Mills for the latest in the Watch This series about recommended movies and television shows. Mills directed the film Beginners starring Christopher Plummer as an elderly father who comes out of the closet.
Up Close And Personal: Introducing Intimate Theater : NPR 010212
Theatergoers are used to being anonymous, hidden in the darkness, part of a crowd. They’re free to fidget, yawn, even tune out; the actors won’t know. But in an innovative kind of theater popping up at fringe festivals and independent venues the spotlight shines on the audience. Intimate theater relies on tight spaces and unconventional stages to collapse the distance between performer and viewer.
Google Searches Are A Window Into Our Culture : NPR 010212
Millions of people are searching for things every day on Google. The people at the giant search engine company realized that if they tracked those searches, the patterns can tell us about what’s happening with people’s lives.
Airlines To Post Fees, Exxon Awarded $900 Million : NPR 010212
Starting later this month, the Transportation Department is requiring airlines to advertise prices which include all of the non-optional fees. That way passengers know the full amount they’d have to pay for a ticket. And, Exxon Mobil received some disappointing news from an international panel arbitrating a dispute between it and Venezuela. The panel awarded Exxon only about $900 million. It had been seeking $7 billion.

Posted in attention economy | Tagged attention, curation, links | Leave a comment

Praying for a Piano Player

Posted on December 24, 2011 by Mark Willis

Every family with an oral tradition has a story that is told and re-told at Christmas until it acquires the power of myth. This is mine. It tells how my grandmother, Ona Willis, joined the Salvation Army.

It was a rainy night in Columbus, Ohio on Christmas Eve in 1944. All three of Ona’s sons were fighting overseas in the war. The news was full of stories about the German counter-offensive known as the Battle of the Bulge. Ona knew my dad was somewhere in northern France, and she feared the worst.

Anxious and depressed, Ona walked aimlessly along the streets of her neighborhood that night. She stopped in front of a Salvation Army Hall when she heard people singing. She listened a long time in the rain before mustering the resolve to go in. She stood meekly just inside the door, ready to slip back into the night. When the hymn ended, the Salvation Army Captain at the front of the hall noticed her standing there, wet and frazzled .

“Lady,” he said in a booming, radiant voice, ‘do you know how to play the piano?”

She did.

“Praise the Lord! We’ve been praying for a piano player, and here you are!”

The Salvation Army gave Ona refuge that Christmas Eve, and she made music for them every Wednesday night and Sunday morning for the next 30 years. She played all the stalwart hymns. She wrote several hymns herself, but the scores are lost to the world. What I remember now – I can still hear it – is her jubilation as she marched through the major chords until she made them swing.

I can see Ona now sitting at the piano, a cigarette dangling from her lip, a cold cup of coffee perched somewhere in arm’s reach. Conjure Hoagy Carmichael in a floral print house dress and you get the picture. See the four-year-old boy snuggled next to her on the piano bench? That’s me, mesmerized by her deft hands making such an effortless stream of music. She played it all by ear. Ona and my dad read and wrote music on paper, but they really cut loose when they played without a score. From them I began to learn what it means to listen, remember, and improvise this way. None of us knew then how I would need that knowledge — playing by ear — throughout a life of letting go of sight.

Originally posted December 24, 2007.

Posted in memoir | Tagged Bob Willis, Christmas, Ona Willis, Salvation Army | 10 Comments

Giving Thanks: One Reader Is A Miracle

Posted on November 24, 2011 by Mark Willis

All the talk about slow food and slow blogging reminds me of this story from the Left Bank. I published it first in September 2007, near the beginning of this blog. It remains one of the most satisfying pieces of new writing that I’ve done here. I was sad the day it dropped off the bottom of the home page, which held 20 posts then. Maybe no one would ever find or read the story again. So I re-posted it that Thanksgiving, and now I claim it as a family tradition. On this day meant to give thanks it gives me pleasure to read and publish it again to affirm how I am blessed that Ms. Modigliani is my first reader.

The title here comes from Walter Lowenfels, the poet and labor organizer whom Henry Miller immortalized as Jabberwhorl Cronstadt in Black Spring. “One reader is a miracle,” Walter said. “Two readers are a movement.”

[Photo by Ms. Modigliani]

I remember the book I held in my hands that day. I remember the feel of its time-warped, water-stained pages. I remember its murky, moldy river smell, call it the book’s bouquet, suggesting years of storage on the banks of the Seine. Had I bought it then, I could feel and smell it now and know it from a thousand other books in my studio. Its touch and bouquet would transport me into the midst of its terroir, several blocks of the Latin Quarter only a stone’s throw from the river, where it was printed and published, sold and re-sold, read and debated, discarded and read again in other hands — for three centuries. Like the fish that got away, it looms ever larger and more mysterious just below the surface of my memory.

It was a 1745 edition of Voltaire. The price was 45 euros. I had as much cash in my pocket, but that seemed exorbitant for a book slowly composting like leaf-mold. Voltaire never meant that much to me. I was hoping to stumble upon an affordable antiquarian volume of Rabelais. Still, 1745 was 1745, and I liked the smell of leaf-mold…

“You don’t need to buy books,” Ms. Modigliani said after snapping the photo. “You don’t need to read them. Just touching books is what you really want.”

She was right. Until then, she’d always been a little dubious about my passion for collecting books. Charitably, she overlooked the impracticality, the apparent futility of a blind man acquiring (and housing) countless printed volumes he could never read. Patiently and generously, she read to me more than a few obscure books over the years. As we made our way through the bookstalls along the Seine, she gamely surveyed the titles for me, translating snippets of this text or that. She almost succumbed to the passion herself as she haggled with bouquinistes on my behalf. Nonetheless, she couldn’t ignore the incongruity that I might pay more for a musty old book than she would spend for chic new shoes. It seemed, well, profligate.

So it was a moment of deep insight and acceptance when Ms. Modigliani said, “Just touching books is what you really want.” I felt understood then, and loved. How could buying any mere physical object compare with that?

I didn’t buy the book. We walked down Quai des Grands-Augustins to the Institut de France, then turned left onto Rue de Seine. There was Voltaire! Chancing upon his statue unexpectedly must have been an omen. I took a picture as if to prove to myself that I truly was a free agent in this situation. Then I heard a cold marble voice mocking me. Maybe it was an oracle from the terroir. “You should have bought the book.”

[Photo by a blind flaneur]

Posted in Bouquiniste | Tagged Ms. Modigliani, Paris, Ve, VIe | 9 Comments

Attention Economy – November 4, 2011

Posted on November 4, 2011 by Mark Willis

Edgar Degas. Ballet Rehearsal. Oil on canvas. 1885-1891. Yale University Art Gallery. [Source: NPR]]

Degas’ Dancers: Behind The Scenes, At The Barre : NPR 110311
It’s not often that an art show makes visitors stand up straighter. But Degas’s Dancers at the Barre: Point and Counterpoint — an exhibition at the Phillips Collection in Washington, D.C. — has that effect. Ballet dancers in gauzy skirts stretch and bend and twist on oil and pastel canvases in the museum’s galleries, which showcase more than 30 works by Edgar Degas.
AbeBooks’ Top 10 Most Expensive Sales in October 2011
Those naysayers who say the physical book is dead should take a look at October’s top 10 most expensive sales on AbeBooks. The combined value of the top 10 sales exceeds $98,000 and an $11,000 signed first edition of A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway didn’t even crack the top three.
At Jazz Standard, New Orleans’s Loss Is New York’s Gain – WSJ.com 110211
When Henry Butler played piano at a gallery in New Orleans’s French Quarter earlier this year, it was no standard gig. He celebrated an exhibit of his pictures, in connection with an HBO documentary about blind photographers. “My approach to photography is partly intuitive and a bit intellectual,” Mr. Butler said then. He might as well have been describing his music. But while he checks position, distance and lighting with an assistant before taking a picture, on the bandstand he consults no one but himself. “We’re going to play whatever I feel like playing,” he said recently at his Brooklyn …
Jonah Lehrer on the Surprising Benefits of Daydreaming – YouTube
Author and WIRED contributing editor Jonah Lehrer discusses the surprising benefits of daydreaming, and questions whether ubiquitous access to the Internet negatively affects the ability to let one’s mind wander. “Now, every time I get even a little bit bored … I check my email for the millionth time that day,” says Lehrer. “I lose myself in my 3-inch screen, instead of exploring the usual process of daydreaming.”
The Importance of Mind-Wandering | Wired Science | Wired.com 102511
Jonah Lehrer: “When people are immersed in monotony, they automatically lapse into a very special form of brain activity: mind-wandering. In a culture obsessed with efficiency, mind-wandering is often derided as a lazy habit, the kind of thinking we rely on when we don’t really want to think. (Freud regarded mind-wandering as an example of “infantile” thinking.) It’s a sign of procrastination, not productivity. In recent years, however, neuroscience has dramatically revised our views of mind-wandering. For one thing, it turns out that the mind wanders a ridiculous amount.”
Spark 160 – October 30 & November 2, 2011 | Spark
Science writer Jonah Lehrer recently asked whether our fascination with digital technology has diluted our ability to let our minds wander, and therefore be creative. But is digital technology actively taking away from day dreaming? And just how is a roaming mind linked to creative thought? Kalina Christoff is an assistant professor in the Psychology department and the Brain Research Centre at the University of British Columbia whose research focuses on the mechanics of introspection and mind-wandering. (Runs 11:49)
Demystifying McLuhan – Download Media
Browse through our amazing audio, video and images of Marshall McLuhan and other relevant materials below. You can preview the content in the media players and download the media you want to use from the links provided.
Demystifying McLuhan – Home
The McLuhan Mashup challenge is on and amazing prizes are up for grabs. From October 31st to November 12th we invite you to remix, rework and recreate Marshall McLuhan’s message by creating your own McLuhan Mashup. Learn more about how to get in on the Demystifying McLuhan Mashup Challenge or get some inspiration first by watching our sample mashup below!
Confidential Printed Circular from Progressive Union, Yellow Springs, Ohio, – Cowan’s Auctions
8″ x 10.5″ printed sheet with Central Bureau P.U. Memonia Institute, September 1856, announcing a new resort to taking the Water Cure with extensive details of the luxurious accommodations available. Condition: Slight soil, VG. Sold at auction in 2008 for $270.
Thomas and Mary Gove Nichols – Sept. 25, 2011 – Antioch College
Thomas and Mary Gove Nichols were already notorious for their reform activities when they issued the following prospectus in 1856 announcing their proprietorship of the Yellow Springs Water Cure. Water cure, also known as hydropathy, was a popular form of alternative medicine that employed techniques known today as homeopathic and followed regimens modern observers would recognize as wellness. Established in the South Glen near Yellow Springs in the early 1840s, the Glen Forest Water Cure was a spa staffed by physicians and not to be confused with the resort hotel situated at the famous spring that gives the town its name. Followers of the highly influential and equally eccentric French Utopian thinker Charles Fourier (1772-1837), the Nichols’ were known primarily for their advocacy of free love.
MARY GOVE NICHOLS (1810 – 1884)
“Secretly studying medical texts and reading the work of dietary reformer Sylvester Graham, Mary Gove began to lecture to all-female audiences on anatomy, physiology, and hygiene, her candor often provoking both admiration and scandal. Determined to relieve women of what she saw as the unnecessary physical and mental suffering caused by their lack of access to information about health, she recommended that women exercise daily, breathe fresh air, shower with cold water, avoid the fashionable tight-laced corsets of the day, and abstain from coffee and meat. Once separated from her first husband, she founded a “water-cure” clinic in New York City and published stories and a novel as well as other health-related literature. In 1848 she married Thomas Low Nichols, a writer with an interest in health reform and progressive views of women’s rights. Together they opened water-cure facilities, co-ed schools, and alternately advocated free love and celibacy among their students.”
Talk:Free love – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Outlnes strategies and sources for a Wikipedia page for Mary Gove Nichols. See detailed documentation.
College in Ohio Covets ‘Neglected Park’ in Florida – New York Times 111587
Old-timers still tell tales about Hugh Taylor Birch, who at the turn of the century collected three miles of of isolated beachfront property when land was cheap and settlers were few and far between. Those who are old enough remember him in his last years as a tall, white-bearded man, vexed by encroaching civilization, using a rifle to shoot out new street lights installed by the City of Fort Lauderdale at the edge of his property. So angry was he at the city fathers for intruding on his beautiful tropical paradise with roads and taxes that in 1942, the year before his death at the age of 94, he snubbed the city and deeded a 180-acre parcel of his property to Florida for use as a state park. Except for 35 acres that went to his daughter, Mr. Birch left the rest of his Fort Lauderdale property to his beloved alma mater, Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio.

Posted in attention economy | Tagged attention, curation, Degas, links | Leave a comment

Attention Economy – October 31, 2011

Posted on October 31, 2011 by Mark Willis

Marc Chagall. The Couple (A Holy Family). Oil on canvas. 1909. Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris. [Source: Wikipaintings]

Marc Chagall – WikiPaintings.org
The Couple (A Holy Family) – Marc Chagall – WikiPaintings.org
Gallery: Musée National d’Art Moderne, Centre Pompidou, Paris, France
Marc Chagall. Red Nude Sitting Up. – Olga’s Gallery
Marc Chagall. Red Nude Sitting Up. 1908. Oil on canvas. 90 x 70 cm. Private collection.
Robert Owen – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Robert Owen (14 May 1771 – 17 November 1858) was a Welsh social reformer and one of the founders of utopian socialism and the cooperative movement.
Frances Wright – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Frances Wright (September 6, 1795 – December 13, 1852) also widely known as Fanny Wright, was a Scottish-born lecturer, writer, freethinker, feminist, abolitionist, and social reformer, who became a U. S. citizen in 1825. That year she founded the Nashoba Commune in Tennessee as a utopian community to prepare slaves for emancipation, intending to create an egalitarian place, but it lasted only three years. Her Views of Society and Manners in America (1821) brought her the most attention as a critique of the new nation.
Historic Greene County: an … – Catherine Kidd Wilson, Greene County Historical Society (Greene County, Ohio) – Google Books
Greene County, Ohio History
History Of Greene County, Together With Historic Notes On The Northwest, And The State Of Ohio. Gleaned From Early Authors, Old Maps Any) Manuscripts, Private And Official Correspondence, And All Other Authentic Sources. By R. S. Dills. Illustrated. Dayton, Ohio: Odell & Mayer, Publishers. 1881.
Michael Lewis, How The Financial Crisis Created A ‘New Third World’ : NPR 100411
LEWIS: “I worked on Wall Street and the Wall Street I left you could say a lot of things about it, but the people were doing the complicated stuff, they weren’t stupid. If they constructed a bet, the last thing you wanted to do was be on the other side of that debt. Somehow Wall Street became the dumb money and I didn’t see it coming. Wall Street became the dumb money at the table. The people constructing the bets for the big Wall Street firms constructed bets that you did want to be on the other side of, that ended up being huge losing bets for the Wall Street firms. And that shocked me. I mean I had turned to my eye away from Wall Street to sports when this whole financial crisis got going. And when I saw how much money these smart guys who traded derivatives inside the Wall Street firms had lost for their Wall Street firms it took my breath away because I realized that somehow these big firms had become dumb. And how that happened is in some ways at the center of this whole event.”
Digital Public Library of America
The DPLA Steering Committee is leading the first concrete steps toward the realization of a large-scale digital public library that will make the cultural and scientific record available to all. The vision of a national digital library has been circulating among librarians, scholars, educators, and private industry representatives since the early 1990s, but it has not yet materialized. Efforts led by a range of organizations, including the Library of Congress, HathiTrust, and the Internet Archive, have successfully built resources that provide books, images, historical records, and audiovisual materials to anyone with Internet access. Many universities, public libraries, and other public-spirited organizations have digitized materials that could be brought together under the frame of the DPLA, but these digital collections often exist in silos.
MediaBerkman » Blog Archive » RB 185: The Next Generation Library 101711
What would a digital version of your public library look like? There’s more to it than e-books and digital reading devices. Librarians, scholars, innovators, and techno-wizards are collaborating under the mantle of the Digital Public Library of America (DPLA) to build a next generation public library. Such a thing could incorporate one or more of many different elements: a set of physical buildings; a purely digital archive with an open API layer for coders to play around with; a full fledged digital lending library. And when the DPLA converge on the National Archives in Washington, DC this Friday (you can check out the agenda and tune in to a livestream here) they’ll get to work out just a few of those ideas.
MediaBerkman » Blog Archive » RB 184: Intellectual Property — Not Just For Lawyers Anymore 101211
It’s time to stop thinking about intellectual property as something purely for your legal counsel to deal with. That’s the driving idea behind John Palfrey’s aptly titled new book Intellectual Property Strategy. Companies and institutions that have to worry about creative works, trademarks, or brands would be well-suited, Palfrey says, to seize the sword and shield from the attorneys (who tend to be aggressive and/or defensive about IP) and exercise a little more flexibility and creativity with intellectual property on their own. Palfrey sat down with David Weinberger for this week’s Radio Berkman to talk about why.
Spark 159 – October 23 & 26, 2011 | Spark
There’s been a sharp decline in the number of young people studying Computer Science. Mark Allemang is a professor at Sault College in Sault Ste Marie Ontario who has seen this decline first hand, as more and more courses are canceled in community college. But why do so-called digital natives lack interest in pursuing careers in tech fields? David Ticoll is the executive director of the Canadian Coalition for Tomorrow’s ICT Skills, and he thinks the key is in not limiting education in computers to a hard category of ‘computer science’, but in thinking of educating young people in hybrid skills. (Runs 10:00)
Full Interview: Douglas Rushkoff on Program or Be Programmed | Spark 101211
Nora Young: “Today I interviewed Douglas Rushkoff, an author and keen observer of new media and digital culture. I wanted to talk to him about his most recent book, Program or Be Programmed: Ten Commands for a Digital Age. He argues that in learning to code, or at least learning a little about coding, we can better understand the biases of digital technology, and the design decisions that go into our digital technologies. In short, we don’t need to be passive consumers of new technology.”
Full Interview: Rob Spence on Cyborgs, Eyeborgs, and Human Augmentation | Spark 100511
Rob Spence is a documentary filmmaker. He’s also a self-described cyborg. His latest project, Deus Ex: The Eyeborg Documentary launched in conjunction with the launch of a video game called Deus Ex: Human Revolution. In it, Rob looks at the current state of cybernetics, and asks how far off a Deus Ex-like future might be.
CFP 2012 ADA: Multiple Perspectives on Access, Inclusion, and Disability
April 24-25, 2012 | Proposals are due December 5th, 2011 | The theme for the Twelfth Annual Multiple Perspectives, “Experience Understood in Image, Poetry, Narrative and Research” reaches across disciplines, professions and modes of knowing for a fuller understanding of disability. The theme facilitates our twelve year exploration of disability as a reflection of the human condition as seen through the lenses of environmental, theoretical and social constructs as well as personal experience. Preference will be given to presentations that encourage conversations across the typical divisions (medical and social, education and employment, research and practice, business and government, rights and charity …) or focus on the parallels, distinctions and intersections with race, gender and ethnicity.
Catherine Deneuve | Playboy Cover Archive
refer link to Catherine Deneuve post
Browse By Author: H – Project Gutenberg
See listings for Nathaniel and Julian Hawthorne

Posted in attention economy | Tagged attention, curation, links | Leave a comment

The Cascades on Birch Creek

Posted on October 23, 2011 by Mark Willis

After several days of rain during the week. Birch Creek poured righteously over the limestone lip of the Cascades on Sunday morning. [Photo by a blind flaneur]

Posted in Glen | Tagged Birch Creek, Cascades | Leave a comment

Attention Economy – October 14, 2011

Posted on October 14, 2011 by Mark Willis

Pacific Standard Time – Home
Pacific Standard Time is an unprecedented collaboration of cultural institutions across Southern California coming together to celebrate the birth of the L.A. art scene. Beginning October 2011, over 60 cultural institutions will make their contributions to this region-wide initiative encompassing every major L.A. art movement from 1945 to 1980. Celebrate the era that continues to inspire the world.
Pacific Standard Time Tells An L.A. Art Story : NPR 100111
Over the past 10 years, the wealthy L.A.-based Getty Foundation has doled out about $10 million in grants to help launch Pacific Standard Time, an unprecedented collaboration between more than 60 cultural institutions with one grand theme in mind: the birth of the L.A. art scene from 1945 to 1980.
Sailor Charts Solo Trip Into The Record Books : NPR 100111
Matt Rutherford is sailing around North and South America. He wants to be the first person to do the 23,000-mile trip alone and without stopping. RUTHERFORD: It’s like “The Odyssey,” except I’m not getting laid at all. GUTIERREZ: We connected when he anchored up in the Aleutian Islands to get a new water purifier and some fuel for his stove. The rules for contact were so strict that I couldn’t get on his boat to interview him, and I had to shout out questions from the supply boat. Rutherford … was more excited for the hot pizza and the cold beer that we ferried over. RUTHERFORD: It’s almost so good and so strange that you can’t even wrap your mind around it. You know, it’s like you’re drinking beer, and it’s great to be drinking a beer, but it’s so great to be drinking a beer that it’s almost like you’re not drinking a beer? [Chesapeake Regional Accessible Boating a non-profit that works with people with disabilities, gave him the boat for the trip. His website: solotheamericas.org.]
Alibis – Essays on Elsewhere – By André Aciman – Book Review – NYTimes.com 100711
After this inspiration, “Alibis” exhales into a pursuit of evanescence. Most of its chapters are travel essays, and Aciman is a spirited guide, sensitive to history but alive also to food, sunshine, art and aimless wandering. The pleasure of reading him resides in the pleasure of his company. He knows a lot, and often gets carried away, but he also knows how to doubt himself. If his destinations seem conventional — Paris, Barcelona, Rome — his engagement with them is idiosyncratic. His mission is to “unlock memory’s sluice gates,” and it is a mission he accomplishes through the art of the essay itself: “You write not after you’ve thought things through; you write to think things through.”
NYT bookreview.mp3 (audio/mpeg Object) 100711
This week, Stephen Greenblatt on his new book “The Swerve: How the World Became Modern”; Andre Aciman discusses his new collection of travel essays called “Alibis: Essays on Elsewhere”; Jacques Steinberg profiles athletes who compete in the most grueling triathalons in “You Are An Ironman”; Julie Bosman has notes from the field; and Jennifer Schuessler has best-seller news. Sam Tanenhaus is the host.
Misha Glenny: Hire the hackers! | Video on TED.com
Despite multibillion-dollar investments in cybersecurity, one of its root problems has been largely ignored: who are the people who write malicious code? Underworld investigator Misha Glenny profiles several convicted coders from around the world and reaches a startling conclusion.
‘DarkMarket: Cyberthieves, Cybercops and You’ – Exploring the World of Cybercrime | PRI’s The World 101011
Anchor Marco Werman talks about the borderless world of international cyber crime with Misha Glenny, whose new book is called “DarkMarker: Cyberthieves, Cybercops and You.”
Ayesha Khanna on smart cities and the Hybrid Age | Spark
According to Ayesha Khanna, the end of the so-called “Information Age” is nigh. Ayesha is the the director of the Hybrid Reality Institute, and she says we’re starting to enter a new age — the “Hybrid Age” — which is characterized by pervasive computing, biotechnology and nanotechnology, and “the emergence of technologies as a social actor.” That is, a time defined by our social interactions with the machines around us. This week, Nora interviewed Ayesha Khanna about the hybrid age, and about another of Ayesha’s areas of expertise: smart cities. You can hear the full, uncut interview or download the MP3. [runs 32:15]
Spark 157 – October 2 & 5, 2011 | Spark
Psychology professor Jennifer Steeves of York University explains how human beings recognize one another compared to facial recognition software. And Alessandro Acquisti from Carnegie Mellon University reveals some surprising research into how regular recognition tech can identify “anonymous” people. | Jure Leskovec is an assistant professor of computer science at Stanford, and he analyses past human behaviour online to predict future outcomes. And he’s discovered he can correctly predict who your next friends on Facebook will be. | What happens when cities can monitor and respond to the people who live in them? There is no end to the Spark obsession with this question. Ayesha Khanna, director of the Hybrid Reality Institute, talks to Nora Young about the potential, and the challenges of smart cities, and what becomes possible when sensors are embedded everywhere.
Steve Jobs and Apple’s Innovative Advertising – On The Media 100711
Apple Computer co-founder Steve Jobs died this week at the age of 56. Bob remembers the tech giant, and discusses Apple’s iconic “1984″ Super Bowl commercial, which he says is one of the best advertisements ever made.
Spoilers Don’t Spoil Anything – On The Media 100711
A recent study from the University of California, San Diego says that, despite what we might expect, spoilers don’t actually spoil our enjoyment of a story—at least not in books. In fact, knowing the ending might even make us enjoy stories more. Brooke spoke to Jonah Lehrer of Wired, who wrote about the study.
The Loss of a Valuable Journalistic Tool – On The Media 100711
For years, health care reporters have employed a government database called the National Practitioner Data Bank, containing information on malpractice payouts. The public version of the database hides the names of physicians, but after a reporter was able to identify an anonymous doctor, the public database was taken offline. Bob talks to Charles Ornstein of the Association of Health Care Journalists about why the database is important, and attempts by journalists to regain access to it.
Occupy Wall Street – On The Media 100711
The world watches as Occupy Wall Street approaches its fourth week of protests in lower Manhattan and similar demonstrations pop up around the country—but this new-found media attention was slow to catch on. Brooke speaks with Bill Dobbs, a press representative for OWS about what they are doing to generate media coverage. Then Brooke speaks with Michael Kazin, author of American Dreamers: How the Left Changed a Nation, about what needs to happen before protests are transformed into a movement.