Posts from — November 2003

Reverend AKMA can't prove that Jesus wasn't half-dolphin. Reverend AKMA can't prove that Jesus wasn't half-dolphin.

Via adamhill on #joiito [Joi Ito's Web]

In light of Buy Nothing Day this Friday…. Buy Nothing Day is this Friday, Nov. 28th and I thought the lecture I gave last week on Voluntary Simplicity… [Technology, Self, & Community]

The return of Opus!!!!

On November 23rd <that's tomorrow!>, after an absence of almost ten years, Opus returns to the nation's Sunday comic pages.

We can't, at this time, go into detail as to what he's been doing during his mysterious missing decade, although Opus is deeply embarrassed about the rumors, especially the one naming him as the catalyst behind the unfortunate break-up of J Lo and Ben. It will all become clear soon.

[Politics in the Zeros]

The poor bastards who will impeach Clinton but cling to Bush.

There are two US national scandals in this piece:

1. The president and his administrations handling of 9/11 and the war in Iraq.
2. The big media companies spinning things for their pals in the administration.

For Iraqi's wondering about an American style democracy handed to them,
at gun-point, by America I can't help but think they are
sceptical.  And who could blame them for voting for an Islamic
state?

I also think it is shameful that Clinton can be impeached for lying
about having sex with an aide whilst Bush and his cronies lie &
disemble daily, imprison without trial, dismantle America & sell it
(where do you think all this money is coming from to fund your war?)
and reap the profits.

“For shame!”  It makes me angry to think about it.
[Curiouser and curiouser!]

2003 Dublin Core conference: Supporting communities of discourse and practice – Metadata research & applications. “Overall the conference showed lots of enthusiasm in the use of standardized metadata for future inter-operability between institutions such as libraries, government agencies, and corporations. It was interesting to hear various DC people acknowledge that they needed more awareness of how DC was being used in non-traditional settings and ways, such as in corporations, with hardware, and in conjunction with other standards. It will be exciting to see how Dublin Core metadata and other metadata standards start to share a common ground with the information architecture community.” (Madonnalisa Gonzales-Chan and Sarah Rice – Boxes and Arrows)… [InfoDesign: To Surf The Community]

well apple was once again very nice with my tibook; this is its fourth time in for repair and only a few times was it apple's fault, this time the screen blew right before i went to copenhagen, so i sent it off when i can back, off on thursday, back on tuesday. which is very good.

this time they replaced my clamshell assembly, which is apparently the screen and the aluminum cast it isin. the mlb assembly, and the dc in board. 3 fixes, 3rd time for the mlb assembly, second time for the dc in board.

you might say that i'm hard on equipment, which is probably true, but really all i do is use this everywhere, to do nearly everything and well laptops probably aren't supposed to be on 18 hours a day in 7 different places, etc. etc.

back in blacksburg, too much to do though, way too much.

so what did I do in my scholarly sojourn to Copenhagen:
found out that united lost my luggage but SAS would find it, met Charlie Breindahl, wandered about, fixed digital camera, went to lunch at a neat bookshop/cafe, went to Gitte Stald's class, saw Sue Morris give an interesting paper on game user communities, then went to have some drinks with Gitte's class, then went to Espen Aarseth's met Ulla and Dorrit again and then had dinner with Marta and Julian Oliver, who knows my acquaintance John Pace, small world, then went to bed. woke up, had a nice breakfast admired Espen's magic coffee machine, then wandered down to meet charlie, wandered with Charlie around the city a bit more eventually making our way to the to the Carlsburg Statue(it also has other art) Museum, which is charlie's favorite, then we went to lunch and had smoresbrod, which for me was the holiday version a meat turine, very nice with some jul beer, which was ok (but i have exceedingly high beer standards), everyone was having a beer at lunch, the place was a mix between a pub and a cafe, very 'neat' then we went to the Danish Design Center, where the exhibition photographer took some pictures of us for their design prize exhibition, i took a bunch of pics there too, then charlie had to go pick up junior and i had to meet charles ess for dinner, so we wandered around a bit, charlie took me into the economics and social sciences library to look for the encyclopedia we have articles in, we also wandered through the 'twisty street' and eventually made it to norreport, where we went our separate ways. i found my way to itu just fine relying on a nice gentleman to point out the stop once i knew i was close. then i wandered down some streets and apparently was completely oblivious to Sue (sorry about that, I get unidirectional when focused) then I ran into Lisbeth and several other ITUers and gained entry fineagling the proper floor from them and meandered on up, walking down the hall, Charles recognized me from the back and showed me his office, got me a water, we had a short talk then started working on dinner plans, i glanced at several of his books, then he packed his gear, we exchanged some info with Espen and TL Taylor about dinner and we went to his place in fredericksburg, which is a commune inside copenhagen, but is and is not copenhagen, then we wandered off, it was a nice night, a bit brisk, but my new coat stood me in good stead. first we dropped off charles's stuff in his flat, which was nice, then we wandered off in search of a dinner place, and discovered to our chagrin that the 'chosen one' was reserved, though it looked interesting if a bit smoky, so we hunted around and then i waited for the gang and then charles found kai, which was nice, so it was charles, espen, tl, sue, myself and jesper juul at dinner, and a fine dinner was had by all… i had the crusted salmon and an apple crisp with vanilla ice cream(realizing the light is the way to go with possible jet lag looming), then espen and i headed back to his place where i was staying. the next day was the conference http://game.itu.dk/open_source_symposium.html i primarily participated in the roundtable . the next day was sunday, espen and i took a walk around dragor, saw the town, saw the port, saw the teahouses, saw the malmo bridge, saw the fort, saw the geese, oh saw quite a bit, but only had my camera for part of it, as the batteries died. monday i gave my ethics presentation at itu with a good audience, Stine was ill and everyone was busy so i wandered off and got nearly entirely lost until i found myself again, then reoriented and headed down town, it was a good wander and earned me a few blisters. the next day i flew out, landed in dc. my flight to roanoke was canceled, united did not put me up in a hotel, i had to get one myself, i was quite displeased with them and still am, but what can you do, so now i'm back in blacksburg.

shortly off to copenhagen to do a conference and a talk at ITU, should be a fun time. i don't know whether i'll blog at all over there, it depends on access. only problem is that in the last two days, pretty much since i installed 10.3.1 my laptop screen has been going wonky, it might be unrelated to the install, but it will have to be fixed when i get back.

Gerard Goggin. Gerard is starting a research blog, wandering around a cultural history of the internet in Australia; a study of the mobile phone as a cultural object; and work on disability, culture, & new media. It's a baby blog. So stay… [Vlog 2.1]

——

it looks like gerard is joining in.

Link then beer. Link then beer. A whole load of links to put out there before I retreat to the local bar-from-home for beer and slightly-too-many-to-be-polite apperitivi. (Correction: aperitivi has one p. Which I guess depends on how long you've been eating them. Right now, I'd… [Ben Hammersley's Dangerous Precedent]