Smellvertising

KFC's new marketing technique.

Didn't really think they could get any (pretty intense --->) worse.

Maybe PETA could send some face masks.

Here's looking at you, Ingrid.

The 305

300 mockumentary by dholecheck. The humor seems very office-ish. Refreshing to see a well done and ridiculous spoof of the CGI blood fest.

Four Legged Friends and Digital Techne

What do we lose in the temporal journey through different forms of techne? Even if we don't technically lose them thanks to non-synchronous production, how does our experience change? How does our abilitiy to acquire capital change?

Maybe they seem like too broad, too general questions, but sometimes it is fun to be romantic about writing with a pen on paper, hand churning blueberry ice cream or threading slick film through gates in a movie projector.

In some ways the argument against digital projection seems similar to many arguments against more extensively mechanized production. As a projectionist I wouldn't be able to feel the pride of completing a specialized task with my hands. I will be more removed from the final product because I put in less of my knowledge and labor into its completion. As the complexity decreases I will become less valuable as a worker. The shelf life on part of my current skill set sucks.

The counter arguments, in many ways, seem similar as well. I will have less work. Ideally less work would also allow for more leisure. Digital projection would save the theatre the costs of shipping heavy reels of film.

Until today it seemed there was more weight on the side of keeping the old technology. We already have it. It seems wasteful to upgrade, and the nostalgic factor is tempting sometimes. It's nice, in a way, to watch a movie on film. Quaint?

Today, wiki and a recipe for cantalope sorbet in the Ingles coupon page informed me that film, from Kodak's to Carmike's, is all made with gelatin. According to Peta's site, there isn't a substitute. Tomorrow a random sequence of events could conspire to inform me that digital projectors enslave nations, but today it is nice to have a change of mind.

TED Talk: Photosynth Promises Digital Revolution

A Brief Hiatus

son volt in philadelphia

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Mapping the Territory

http://www.mediabistro.com/unbeige/web/

Barton & Barton meet Baudrillard. It's not really what I expected from a hypermedia map, but the colonial metaphor seems interesting.

The Precarious Place of Internet Radio

This week Congress entered the fight to save Internet radio.

http://www.rwonline.com/pages/s.0100/t.5809.html

Usually the words "commercial" and "radio" in close proximity leave something close the taste of sweaty garbage in my mouth.

That's assuming the conversation's surrounding a station with an uber tight loop of less than inventive, already over-played tunes--a station's that's licking the fingers of the corporate machines which fuel it.

Internet commercial radio is, in some forms, arguably a different beast.

Take pandora.com for instance.

For the yet-to-be-converted, it's a God in the "box" that, better than I've heard any iPod produce thus far, divinely (and sometimes with a bit of strict displine) selects ecclectic songs that follow musical progressions.

Dilligently prune your station and it might bring forth as opaque an epistemic progression that, personally, I've never experienced from another medium.

In its technology, it's a horse of a radically different color.

So, for the pleasure gained from pandora, for all the other similar and developing technologies, for the progress of audio and online technology in general, let's hope that the two Democratic House members will be successful.

(Un)locking the Symbolic Chain

From AmazingPhil on YouTube.

Maybe useful as part of an argument for the incompatibility of the image/logo centric system to communicate the infinite potential of meaning.

Or, as CriticalHaba responded on YouTube, "ha! congrats, you kept me amused for 2 minutes of my life :D"

Most interestingly, I feel, is that AmazingPhil's video is a response to a new type of automated technology

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4N7nH6RMNI

Final Version of Film

:)

Mario 3, Technology and Imagination

Been thinking that they should really release Mario 3 again for all the gaming minded youngsters out there.

Releasing old modes of production or repopularizing older modes of production doesn't necessitate a regression; rather it seems to be a sound argument for the compatability of non-synchronous modes of production.

Plus, it was the only computer/ video game at which I haven't totally sucked.

We used to spend hours collecting the whistles, warping to "far away lands," rescuing the princess.

O.K. Maybe they should release a non-gender-biased version of the game. The princess can save Mario (in a non-flying, non-Mario 2 way).

The graphics were basic. You couldn't make a character that resembled your own face. You couldn't (Wiiiiiii!) wave your wands in the air to play tennis or bowl.

There was that duck-hunt gun. Hmmm.

Either way, it's a great option for contemporary kids. Bring it on, gamers. I'm ready.

From a different angle, I have a friend and fellow Carmike serf who is the beta tester of beta testers for computer and video games.

He spends his entire twice-monthly paycheck on games. He stays up gaming all night almost every night.

It makes me wonder about the technology.

How do we comare my friend's love for computer games with othes' love for books or fine arts? Is playing a computer game a form of reading?

He interacts with a symbol set albiet with pre-determined outcomes. In some ways, the computer game limits the outcomes. It's a puzzle that the user is supposed to solve. It's challenging, yes, but it's already been solved by the programmer. How does this compare to a Pynchon novel?

How do computers affect our capacity for subjectivity, our capacity to imagine new possibilities for ourselves as subjects? On one hand they might challenge our ideas about what is Real, if there even is a reality. On the other hand, computer games require our memory, something that has traditionally been on the other side of the theoretical binary of imagination.

I'm not sure what the answers are, but it sure is an interesting time to ask these questions.

TED Awards: Bill Clinton

He won $100,000 from BMW.

Now TED plays fairy godmother to the winners.

Clinton's wish:

http://www.ted.com/tedtalks/tedtalksplayer.cfm?key=b_clinton

A Better Life

In Second Life...

a youtube film by eric519

Skeleton of Final Paper

http://anatomy.med.umich.edu/images/plantar_foot_bones.gif

I. Introduction

a. brief overview of Baudrillard's theory
b. transition to discussion of Second Life

II. Evaluation of Second Light with Reference to Baudrillard

a. how S.L. fits with B.'s terms and causes us to rethink the Real
b. argument for a material system of labeling

1. shapes of our perceptions/interactions
2. time spent not participating in other activities
3. money invested in S.L.
4. physical/bodily effects of participation

III. Process of Making the Film

a. why film?

1. a visual/graphic intense medium similar to S.L.
2. orality
3. new technology- learning this tech. is similar in some ways to first entering S.L.

b. why certain graphics?

1. intro "Star Wars" screen
2. photo negatives of Mymeesis
3. screen shots of familiar social networking mediums
4. real-time video from S.L.

c. why certain songs?

1. Aqua's "Barbie Girl"
2. Kings of Leon's "Milk"
3. Flaming Lips' "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots"

d. why narration?

1. reverb effects
2. word choices

IV. Conclusion

a. what would a material system of labeling look like?
b. how this system fits with S.L. and film as mediums
c. hypothesis of S.L.'s future

Portions of the Second Life Pie

http://aspire.mlml.calstate.edu/aspire04/updates/nov/20nov/happy%20pie.JPG

Some statistics for my research

Cultural stats
http://www.secretlair.com/index.php?/clickableculture/entry/second_life_stats_expanded_early_2006/

Economic stats
http://secondlife.com/whatis/economy_stats.php

http://secondlife.com/whatis/economy-market.php

Numbers. Hooray

R2 USPS

photo courtesy of my friend Sean

Greenville, SC

Yeh!

Chronicle of Higher Education Criticizes Baudrillard

http://chronicle.com/weekly/v53/i29/29b00901.htm

Support for a material system of labeling.

Useful for my research, but it is also a bit uncomfortable to echo The Chronicle's sentiment that "That would have required the spirit of criticism, which he
lacked."

It seems almost mean and nasty-ish.

If Baudrillard lacked "the spirit of criticism," he certainly inspired it.

Internet Killed the Boy Band Star

Re-affirmed what Adbusters had said on its back cover last spring...

"Small is the new big."

In a market of multitudes. The new hit is niche.

It's fascinating...but the media ecologists and anyone with an eye towards the strong 90s onward broadcast/print/record label consolidation have been searching for this trend for a bit now.

TED: the BMW planet?

Technophiles take note.


http://ted.com/tedtalks/

Free videos=praise for the public sphere. Sure couldn't afford the six grand for a ticket to this thing.

Most Recent Version

One More

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Tr9WgGBkLE