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An Evening of Light and Sound

Hard to believe it’s been a decade since Christian Crumlish invited me to become part of a small-ish group of web-based artists and developers called antiweb (ironically, no web site to speak of). Mostly centered around a mailing list that has survived the ups and downs of the internet through the years, antiweb has become one of the few stable aspects of life online for me over the years, as well as a posse of online friends I always know I can turn to with tech questions and observations, confessions, ramblings, etc.

Because antiweb is scattered over the earth’s surface, only small sub-clusters of us have ever met face-to-face. Even though it’s a closed list, antiweb isn’t a clique; it’s loose, ragtag, sometimes seems barely to hang together at all. But I feel strangely close to almost everyone on the list, if only for the amount of time we’ve spent together.

To celebrate our 10th birthday, antiweb founder Malcolm Humes is throwing a Bay Area happening this Thursday night (July 28), public invited.

Hard to say exactly what the evening will become, but there’s some cool stuff planned (click Continue for details). I’m working on a 30-page digital comic mash-up including photography by Amy and me, recklessly integrated with text culled from the antiweb list. Will post the comic at birdhouse sometime after the event.

Hope to see some of you there!
Continue reading “An Evening of Light and Sound”

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NPR Is Following Me

Posted about Steven Johnson’s book “Everything Bad Is Good For You.” Bought the book, start reading it, excellent, more on that later. A few days ago, Fresh Air airs an interview with Johnson.

mneptok sends me a link to a kuro5hin story on kite buggies (something I’d love to try). Later that day, hear Living on Earth piece on wind farms and other wind-harnessing technologies… including a segment on kite buggies. Part 1 of the piece connects up to previous posts here about the Altamont wind farm.

This morning, talked with a friend while kids played at the park about the French Laundry and the slow food movement in general. Listening to the radio while sanding today, caught an NPR piece on the slow food movement (not online), which I mentioned here just a few days ago. The piece included reference to the French Laundry.

At what point should I get freaked out?

Music: Iggy And The Stooges :: Shake Appeal
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The Gilded Inhaler

Must-see mugshot of man arrested for abusing harmful intoxicants.

The 41-year-old Tribett, it seems, had been huffing spray paint and needed a refill. According to a Bellaire Police Department report, Tribett’s pupils were constricted and he replied slowly to their questions. Oh, and “officers observed the paint on face and hands.”

As much as I like pretty much anything spray-painted gold, this guy’s face doesn’t count.

Music: Mission of Burma :: Mica
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Remodel Status #1

Drywall job is complete (had a contractor do that – there were some tricky bits expected and we wanted to get on with it). He also found a crack running across the floor where two backer boards met and worried that it could cause tile popping or cracking in the future. Hasn’t been a problem in the past, but decided to go ahead and have him install double-thick 2×4 supports between the joists and drive long screws through the backer board, sub-floor, and into the supports.

Put about 12 hours this weekend into sanding, spackling, digging out bubbles of tired old paint (four layers!), removing messy old caulk job where it will meet the new paint, etc… Funnest part: Sanding new mud from ceiling. Must wear goggles and filter, but breath from filter fogs goggles from inside while falling dust obscures from the outside. So had to remove goggles every few strokes just to be able to see.

The closer one stares at an old wall, the worse it looks. Like word processing, a process of infinite revision. Gotta know when to quit and get on with it.

Finally decided on paint color. Found two separate vendors to supply the chicken-wire floor tile and the coving that will serve as a baseboard; coving color and texture identical to existing shower tile, which we’ll be keeping. Finally found the perfect light (i.e. one we can agree upon) to replace the 1970s Hollywood-style vanity light. I so look forward to ripping that monstrosity out of the wall.

Decided to make a fairly major change to the cabinet, which is too deep to be fully usable – we’ll install three drawers on sliding rollers, which will require knocking out its frame and molding and building a replacement door. Unanticipated work and might cause delay, but will be worth it.

Next up: Final spackle pass, final floor prep, lay tile.

Music: Charles Mingus :: Goodbye Pork Pie Hat
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Chemical Stew: You’re Soaking In It

Washington Post:

Unborn babies in the United States are soaking in a stew of chemicals, including mercury, gasoline byproducts and pesticides … The report, by the Environmental Working Group, is based on tests of 10 samples of umbilical-cord blood taken by the American Red Cross. They found an average of 287 contaminants in the blood, including mercury, fire retardants, pesticides and the Teflon chemical PFOA.

Of course if all that goo is in the cord blood, it has to be in the mother as well…

Music: Harold Melvin :: Wake Up Everbody
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Raccoon Infidels

Returned home from vacation to discover the cat food supply compromised by raccoons. Used to be, they’d come through the cat door, move a large garbage can aside, open the cabinet door, pull out a 25-lb. bag of cat food and claw it open. We “solved” that one last year by regularly transferring cat food bags into a large sealable plastic container. Now, it seems, they’ve realized that if they pull the whole container out onto the kitchen floor and start gnawing, they can eventually break the plastic and hit paydirt. No one went hungry, but cats are furious about the smell. We hear that placing a transistor radio set to a talk station near the cat door works – will try that next time.

Music: steve hillage :: Knights Templar
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The Slow E-Mail Movement

I’ve complained for years that I can never seem to get out in front of the email inbox. One of the most continuously frustrating aspects of my job is that a million small distractions conspire to prevent me from tackling larger projects, and I know I’m not alone in this.

The problem for many workers is not just the amount of communication, but the fact that it takes time to mentally “shift gears” and sink fully into a larger task after handling a piece of communication (it takes the average person eight minutes to return to a creative state after an interruption).

Many workers today feel too connected, and are beginning to rebel against connectedness itself. Personally, I’ve found that I become more productive when I shut down my email client completely and just deal with mail in larger batches two or three times a day. I rarely enable iChat for the same reason, as useful as it can be at times. CNET:

“It used to be: ‘I’ve got to be online, it’s so frustrating that I can’t get on,'” said Chris Capossela, a vice president in Microsoft’s Information Worker unit. “Now that’s happened. People are ultraconnected. And you know what? Now they are starting to realize, ‘Wow, I want to actually stop getting interrupted.'”

Interesting that Veritas’ marketing department has actually implemented “email-free Fridays” for the same reason.

The “Slow E-Mail Movement” is probably inspired by the slow food movement.

Music: eels :: Bus Stop Boxer
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moon.google

As if Google Earth wasn’t kicking enough booty, now we have Google Moon to complement the effort for lunar-bound travelers. While exploring, be sure to zoom all the way in for stunning close-ups of the surface composition.

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International Klein Blue

Visited the Walker Art Center in Minnneapolis today, amazement around every corner. Stunning to find the actual tub in which Yves Klein had his naked models dip before applying themselves to large white canvases in the early 60s, saturated in the cosmically deep hue IKB. International Klein Blue was a color invented and patented by Klein, bluer than blue, virtually the only color he ever used. And yet, despite his total commitment to IKB, Klein refused to touch paint. Wish I had jotted down the quote since I can’t find it referenced on the web, but laughed out loud when I read something to the effect of “I would never stoop to dirty my hands with actual paint” … more stuff about distance and control… picturing these poor models bathing in the deepest blue, throwing themselves against white muslin, and Klein standing back, directing traffic, the total puppeteer. An absurd power trip with absurdly beautiful results.