New music coming!

I'm excited. Bruce Cockburn's new cd is due for release on July 18. Hmm...quicker to order from Amazon or buy locally? JB-Hi-fi had YNSE on the shelf right on release date in 2003 so I might check with them to see if they'll be getting it.

a flying diversion

I was madly into model aeroplanes from when I was under ten to my late teens, and I must say the bug never quite goes away. It's the building that I enjoyed as much as the flying - very satisfying. In fact, despite getting to a level of solo proficiency at the controls of an RC aeroplane in the mid-90s, the time spent actually constructing a bit of aviation machinery was just as therapeutic. The potential high expense of this hobby does present something of a personal ethical hurdle, but it doesn't have to be expensive to be fun and enriching. I think lots of things are like that - building a house, a boat, a shed, an organisation, a relationship - your imagination about the finished product drives you ahead during the design, build and preparation stage (hopefully!).


Anyway...talking of model aeroplanes, I found this excellent site from the US about a guy who's designed an RC slope soarer (pictured) and made the design available over the internet. Such un-powered aircraft rely on gravity and wind to reach speeds that surpass most powered model aircraft. It looks like a fine ship, and it makes me yearn for having a good workshop once again. Starting to think...



And in other news...I've booked my ticket for Greenbelt 2006 so am greatly looking forward to attending.

foiling cinema pirates?

I saw this article on the BBC about experimental measures being developed in the US to block the video cameras of cinema movie pirates with white light.
It's a tricky one, and no doubt it's not just cinemas that might be interested in such a set-up. I was wondering if an effective means of foiling video cameras in cinemas might be to vary the frame rate of the film itself - thus interfering with the coherence of the video camera's constant frame rate capture - but on second thoughts that might be extremely complicated and cause people in the audience to feel ill.

Thinking about the ease of commodifying artistry.

In a world where many self-appointed critics decry our consumerist ways, the yawning gulf between producer and consumer is often pointed out. We don't meet the person who grew our coffee, glued together our fancy runners, assembled the parts that make up a computer. We probably don't wish to either, except in moments of rare altruism where someone inspired us with good feelings about smelling the roses and living in a big happy community.

Digital technology is a great buffer in the transfer of artistic media and is useful in perpetuating this gulf. The music gets made on one side, and we listen to it on the other, but in the middle it exists merely as ones and zeros in storage and in transit all around the networked globe, meaningless until something at the other end transforms it into something we can actually hear.

Further thoughts...here

more on net neutrality

Further to my previous comments, there's an argument on Crikey.com that suggests that enforcing net neutrality would be a bad move that freezes innovation. The implication here seems to be: let all decisions made by ISPs over pricing structures for different levels of user fall into the marketplace and see what swims and what sinks.

It largely seems to be about internet-delivered television, which would require substantial investment in network infrastructure and understandably higher charges to people who use the internet predominantly for this purpose. In this trend towards [presumably, ultimately, live] online movies and programmes, can one be forgiven for thinking "what about regular terrestrial and satellite broadcast?"?
I guess, like there's only one electromagnetic spectrum, there's only one internet. Funny how it's become so retro-fitted over the years. Copper lines that once carried analogue phone signals are now used to service digital broadband connections.
So does all this exciting online telly need to be available live? Or is it enough in the medium term for it to be available in download form, like podcasts? Listen-again-on-demand can be good, but I imagine the server requirements are enormous, especially if it's to be high-quality video. Perhaps the programmer can stream the material in one go, like television (i.e. you have to watch it at the time it's on), and leave it to us with our ever-growing arsenal of personal video recorders to `tape' it.
No doubt we'll be told that whatever happens it's all in the name of `what the customer wants'. That old mantra. The cynic in me presumes this to mean that the quality and flexibility of delivery will always exceed the quality of the programme material itself.

Having said all this...as a fan of online overseas radio stations and radio programme podcasts, I'd be interested in watching more overseas telly if I could find a good directory of what's on.

the issue of net neutrality

The idea of a two-tier internet is looming, according to some commentators on the recent rejection by US politicians of the principle of internet neutrality. BBC article.

I suspect many of us have come to take for granted that all internet traffic, whether it be email, web-page downloads, personal photo uploads, streaming video or chatting is all treated in an egalitarian way by the companies providing the physical network infrastructure. A two-tier system would presumably imply an internet environment where those with the means could enjoy a level of service and media material not available on a lower level. Perhaps that great little website you've been working on will only be viewable by every online user if you've paid extra to have it on the high level internet, rather than the regular internet that doesn't go everywhere.

Time will tell. It's disturbing. Perhaps it was at our peril that we took the net's neutrality as given - after decades of a broadcast media landscape dominated by the mostly one-way traffic from the megaliths of commercial programming.

new music from Mr Burnett

I've just got the new CD The True False Identity, by T-Bone Burnett. I've just started listening...
Have made a booking to head over to the UK in August to start another big adventure. I'm on the waitlist with Thai Airlines (the cheapest option I've found for what I want), and if it all works I'll be in the UK for Greenbelt.

some religion late in the week

On Thursday I went to hear Dr William Cavanaugh deliver a lecture with a somewhat long title The Sacrifice of Love - The Eucharist as resistance to terror and torture. It was part of the Catholic Theological College's lecture series, and while I have no links with that particular institution, I was alerted to the lecture by the good folk at Ridley College Bookshop in Parkville.
Dr Cavanaugh hails from the US and delivered a talk that drew on his study and personal experience with the situation in Chile when General Pinochet was in command, and led on to our current day experience of the so-called War on Terror. There were significant points made, one being about torture being a requirement to maintain a supply of enemies so that a war could carry on. "Despite the rhetoric, wars are never simply about making friends. Wars are about the imaginary dividing of the world into friends and enemies. And enemies must exist in sufficient abundance and sufficient monstrosity if a war is to be sustained".
People can be made to say anything under duress - even those with no connection to the resistance. The atrocities at Abu Ghraib were mentioned in relation to comments by former US interrogators that they never got intelligence from their interrogation subjects.
Much more to say, but I think I'll look out for the transcript if it appears on the web. I'm told a podcast will be available, too.

And on the computing front, I've acquired an Airport card for the old Powerbook G3. These original 802.11b cards are hard to find and expensive on Ebay, but this one came from a friend who was retiring an old PowerMac G4. I've got the new G4 PB with Airport Extreme of course, but having the old G3 set up for Airport internet sharing is handy and I've had my fill of trying to get the job done with third-party PCMCIA cards and flaky third-party drivers.