Wednesday, November 29, 2000

23:26 Homework
So far so good this week, yes. Lots of old piles of unnatended items being digested and that feels good. Both at home and at the studio. A vague feeling of glad. Especially in bed at night. Home feels really good right now.

I noticed as I came in this evening that in the last few days I probably ate more supermarket food than junk or restaurant food. That is something. That means that I eat better but also that I have actually been to the supermarket instead of leaving the studio after everything is closed.

The thought after that thought was: what if from now on I would sit while eating? 'What a novel idea' said Paul, who admitted sitting down at every meal - in front of his computer. Jaja. So I did sit at the kitchen table and ate my whole-grain toasted bread with juicy, salt-and-peppered, sliced tomatoes and cheese while browsing Achterwerk, the back cover of the VPRO tv guide where kids write about their troubles.

After eating I went searching for an online version of the Achterwerk page at the VPRO site and I found this message board where kids talk about their feelings about death. A cute message header: 'Dood gaan is heel verfelend' (Sandra, 11).

How old do you feel?
link |

00:06 Today is Nina's birthday!
HBTY
HBTY
HBDN...
HBTY.
I only know Nina through her text. When I first started visiting Geegaw (not so long ago) she was writing about dreams and that got me immediately hooked. I now read it pretty much every day. She has this subtle sense of humor and a lightness in her writing that I really really love. Some recent favorites: the porcine wrestling champions and the day she called in sick.

So: Parabéns pra você!

link |

Monday, November 27, 2000

17:46 Before it gets really too old: one of the best e-mail forwards I ever got - and I almost deleted it before reading (received some ten days ago via Richard, a.k.a. the endless source):

NOTICE OF REVOCATION OF INDEPENDENCE

To the citizens of the United States of America,

In the light of your failure to elect a President of the USA and thus to govern yourselves, we hereby give notice of the revocation of your independence, effective today.

Her Sovereign Majesty Queen Elizabeth II will resume monarchical duties over all states, commonwealths and other territories. Except Utah, which she does not fancy. Your new prime minister (The Rt. Hon. Tony Blair, MP for the 97.85% of you who have until now been unaware that there is a world outside your borders) will appoint a minister for America without the need for further elections. Congress and the Senate will be disbanded. A questionnaire will be circulated next year to determine whether any of you noticed.

To aid in the transition to a British Crown Dependency, the following rules are introduced with immediate effect:

1. You should look up "revocation" in the Oxford English Dictionary. Then look up "aluminium". Check the pronunciation guide. You will be amazed at just how wrongly you have been pronouncing it. Generally, you should raise your vocabulary to acceptable levels. Look up "vocabulary". Using the same twenty seven words interspersed with filler noises such as "like" and "you know" is an unacceptable and inefficient form of communication. Look up "interspersed".

2. There is no such thing as "US English". We will let Microsoft know on your behalf.

3. You should learn to distinguish the English and Australian accents. It really isn't that hard.

4. Hollywood will be required occasionally to cast English actors as the good guys.

5. You should relearn your original national anthem, "God Save The Queen", but only after fully carrying out task 1. We would not want you to get confused and give up half way through.

6. You should stop playing American "football". There is only one kind of football. What you refer to as American "football" is not a very good game. The 2.15% of you who are aware that there is a world outside your borders may have noticed that no one else plays "American" football. You will no longer be allowed to play it, and should instead play proper football. Initially, it would be best if you played with the girls. It is a difficult game. Those of you brave enough will, in time, be allowed to play rugby (which is similar to American "football", but does not involve stopping for a rest every twenty seconds or wearing full kevlar body armour like nancies). We are hoping to get together at least a US rugby sevens side by 2005.

7. You should declare war on Quebec and France, using nuclear weapons if they give you any merde. The 98.85% of you who were not aware that there is a world outside your borders should count yourselves lucky. The Russians have never been the bad guys. "Merde" is French for "shit".

8. July 4th is no longer a public holiday. November 8th will be a new national holiday, but only in England. It will be called "Indecisive Day".

9. All American cars are hereby banned. They are crap and it is for your own good. When we show you German cars, you will understand what we mean.

10. Please tell us who killed JFK. It's been driving us crazy.

Thank you for your cooperation.

link |

Sunday, November 26, 2000

23:55 All day looking up at buildings imagining where will I be living in a few months. Chances are that I know the street, and have been biking back and forth in front of the building. But where is it?

Just back from the new Pathé Munt where I saw X-Men. Not one inspiring scene or dialogue. What a pity.

Outside it still pours. I guess all together we've had some three solid weeks of rain and bad weather. Things don't look any better in France either.
link |

10:38 It's moving day. André's new house in the East of Amsterdam is ready, and a bunch of his friends (me included) is going to help him move. If I am not too late I'll pass by the studio to get my camera and produce some historical records. My own moving house should follow soon.
link |

00:15 Yesterday morning, fIrst thing: a talk on the phone with Peter Ong, from Antwerp, who is busy updating his family information channels. His mom's response was very interesting. Then I spent the whole of Saturday being productive at Airplant. Backed up my files, had a meeting with Tanja den Broeder about a possible new assignment and worked with Stefan on our vandejong project (driemandenlangkiezen). I never got to attack my piles of loose items though.

Got several good-humoured SMS messages from Paul, transmitting from the Interzone on his way to London to discuss the details of his NDE project (which I find very exciting and poetic but that involves a pretty creepy procedure)

Thinking of the several Interzone manifestations:
- airports
- hospitals
- ferries / boats / trains / airplanes
- funerals
- waiting rooms
- moving day
Remember: you're always alone in the Interzone.
Buddha lives there.
link |

Saturday, November 25, 2000

23:46 Yesterday: spend a few hours with Daniel Ockeloen and Madelinde Hageman of Submarine learning the basics of MMbase, a database publishing system that is gradually being adopted by several Dutch broadcast organisations. The first impression was very good: I can barely wait for the next steps.

link |

Thursday, November 23, 2000

23:16 Tonight: long and enjoyable conversation with Jouke Kleerebezem. About: the moments where big changes are born; social relationships in Indonesia and in Brazil; French magazines and weather; mother-tongue weblogs; family members and internet; common friends; deep and shallow waters. Ethics in the real estate business. Girls online. Video-attachments. Groningen.

Meneer Boterveld was inmiddels niet te bereiken.


link |

Wednesday, November 22, 2000

23:42 Got home half an hour ago after a long loooong day at the studio. I quickly cooked some wild rice with oyster mushrooms - yummy - and will now watch From Dusk till Dawn from a cassete that Debbie (one of my Arnhem students) lent me when she heard I hadn't seen it.

The little time I spend at home these days is very enjoyable. Sleeping generally well and doing some light things: mostly alternating between The Fall of the Towers (a Delany book I have just started) and some long phone calls. Not enough time to explore what's on TV though, and that's a real pity. I mean it.
link |

13:32 "Wow - imagine the things we could do if we had more than one brain"
- My friend Stefan Kunzmann marvelling at the advantages of collaborating.
link |

Tuesday, November 21, 2000

13:57 Blurring Boundaries
Posting from the Dutch Design Institute, where I function as a moderator for the two-day event where Marius Watz, David Karam, Max Kisman and Peter Mertens discuss the use of audio and music as a design element. This is day two. Last night Kisman illuminated the subject by declaring that audio is for electronic media what paper is for print: it provides the tactile experience by physically touching you as it vibrates inside your ear. A very delicate notion, isn't it?
link |

Saturday, November 18, 2000

16:44 De-clutter this pool: a permanent link for each entry now can be copied from the posting time stamp (right-click or control-click to get the 'copy link location' option).
link |

16:11 Last weekend in Rio as reported by Euclydes (the ultimate neighbour) on a short escapade from busy, dry São Paulo.

15:47 That was then - we're now back to the regular gray-rain-cold Amsterdam weather, way more appropriate for Saturday.

Teoca, linda, dos olhos maravilhosos

aqui tambem muita chuva e etc apesar de ter amanhecido o maior solão.

acabo de chegar de fazer comprinhas sabadais: um mouse novo, já que o velho passou desta para a melhor; um cabo e um adaptador pra poder digitar sons provenientes do meu celular; pastas pra arquivar a contabilidade já que meu estoque de pastas se acabou. e como não encontro uma solução pros meus muitos cabos resolvi construir um porta-cabos com o monte de Lego que andei comprando.

uma delícia estarmos nos comunicando assim tão amiúde.

beijos do bom e velho > Ro

Teodora, a close friend since our art school days, is moving to London. I feel the weather getting better already.
link |

10:40 Good morning. Today: ultra sunny Amsterdam and loads of work to do. A very tricky combination.
link |

Friday, November 17, 2000

01:27 In a few hours I'll be leaving for Rotterdam for the second and last day of the Deaf workshop on Online Archiving. The first session was two days ago and all modalities of librarians were represented, and Paul and I (under the category 'personal archiving').
link |

01:25 Earlier this evening I was shopping (for one) at the supermarket and I thought: this is me in the future. Interesting.
link |

Thursday, November 16, 2000

23:02 I'm free. Scour has shut down its exchange servers today. Phew. I had become totally addicted.

Monday, November 13, 2000

23:16 Enough networking and happiness.
So. This is was the last day of the Doors of Perception conference. What was the feature, really?

The feature is all that can't be experienced via books or computer screens: escorting each idea/presenttaion there was a real person, really there with a body and all (a lovely thing to witness). Speakers got nervous or excited or perky or incomprehensible or cool, and that on some level quite separate from what they're actually talking about. Then we hear a gong or two and their turn is over. As each speaker unplugged his/her Vaio or Powerbook the members of the audience proceeded to rate and judge what they just saw and to share their conclusions with each other. And since ratings sometimes clash (surprise!) the members of the audience then rated each other and their ratings, applying different degrees of flexibility or generosity. Real reflection hopefully seeps in later.

All this criticism sometimes feels like a big exercise of exclusion and that goes against all I really believe in. So how come I had such a good time?

Probably because I was surrounded by people I like.

Remember:

"... these are ugly and dangerous cars... they not merely shelter powerful engines and their powerful engineers - they shelter organic entities, hairy primates; they mate, become fecund and give visceral birth to their children and watch those children change radically in size in the sophistication of their endless demands; organic entities who grow older, more bent, more feeble, more deaf and who die and pass from the earth; there are no single and optimal engineering solutions for these multiplex, time-bound and degenerative aspects of human condition. When the house is finished the family dies."
- Bruce Sterling (on impermanence and viridian design)

"the word gravity comes from... grave... and therefore from death"
- Maya Draisin + Tiffany Shlain (on lightness and the webby awards)

Gravity, somewhere else:

'Volyendesta is a watery planet, with a large, rapidly circumgyrating moon afflicting its inhabitants with a vast variety of unstable moods; but the sheer effort needed to cope with these conditions has evolved a breed (partly originating, as you will recall, from the Volyen stock) able to withstand rapid changes of emotional condition while ostensibly succumbing to them. On my first visit to this planet I was disheartened by its inhabitants' violent reactions to everything, but soon came to see that these could be regarded, rather, as surface storms over a comparatively untouched interior. And I saw that a few of the inhabitants had even been able to use this condition of constant stimulation to evolve and strengthen inner calm.'
Doris Lessing, Documents Relating to the Sentimental Agents in the Volyen Empire, 1984.

link |

Friday, November 10, 2000

13:01 Last night:
our Airplant office incubated Stewart Butterfield, who flew from Vancouver to speak at Doors about non-lightness and his 5k contest. It's cool to have new faces around (we have considered keeping a desk for the occasional plug-in visitor as part of the new studio structure).
link |

12:45 Next weekend:
I'll be at Doors of Perception (now sold out - boy am I glad I got a ticket. Thanks to Tanja)
link |

12:04 How far is it now?

Found this morning in a backup disk: a text I wrote as part of my project farawayplace, one of the online lifesavers comissioned by the Dutch VPRO. Farawayplace invited you to step out of your regular circuit and to go explore and observe different places, their crowds and protocols.
link |

Monday, November 06, 2000

12:59 Today is the last day
Three fragments from Björk's Bedtime Story:

Today is the last day that I'm using words
They've gone out, lost their meaning
Don't function anymore
...
Words are useless, especially sentences
They don't stand for anything
How could they explain how I feel

Traveling, traveling, I'm traveling
Traveling, traveling, leaving logic and reason
Traveling, traveling, I'm gonna relax
Traveling, traveling, in the arms of unconsciousness
...
And all that you've ever learned
Try to forget
I'll never explain again

link |

Saturday, November 04, 2000

11:32 I used to be a Mac-only person and I was proud of it.

A year or two ago I met for the the first time people that were more or less platform-independent. Dogmaless they were. The idea was liberating.

I am amazed how, still now, so many of my Mac-user friends are resistant to even discussing the pros and cons of each operating system. Many people would rather talk religion, sex and politics.

I have a PC next to my Mac now.

The bad part is that it crashes often and has lots of unstable features (so does my Mac - but after being an Apple user for a decade I am supposed know how to deal with the problems).

The good part is the ability to actually experience these differences. And to accept and enjoy things that will just behave or look different. Like Geegaw, for instance.

link |

00:38 Before I go to bed:
right now
less is more than enough
night night

link |

Friday, November 03, 2000

17:09 Oh, and also:

CNET Music Center Dispatch
http://Music.CNET.com/
November 2, 2000
Vol. 1, No. 18

What a weird week it's been. First, Napster inks a deal with music giant Bertelsmann, potentially calling a cease-fire in the legal battles that plague the file-sharing giant. Then, Listen.com buys Scour, the embattled file-swapping site that declared bankruptcy just weeks ago. The strange thing about Listen.com's purchase is that the company has assured the Recording Industry Association of America that Scour's file-sharing service will be shut down.
So why buy the company's assets? Listen.com obviously has some intention of exploring digital music distribution, although we'll have to wait to see how and when. One thing's for sure: if you want to use Scour, you better get in before the door closes.

link |

17:05 Two news clips (Via Richard)

*** Penguin-toppling claims studied
LONDON (AP) - Royal Air Force pilots have long been ridiculed, but remain adamant: fly above a penguin colony, they say, and the curious birds topple over like dominos as they stare up at the aircraft. Now, British scientists are traveling to the Falkland Islands to settle the debate once and for all. British Antarctic Survey researchers plan to spend one month aboard the HMS Endurance studying the phenomenon, which Royal Air Force pilots first recorded during the 1982 Falklands War with Argentina. They claim the penguins crane their heads back so far to watch planes and helicopters buzzing overhead that they lose their balance and tip over. "The penguins
always look up at the helicopters flying over - and follow them all the way until they fall backward," said Stuart Matthews, operations officer on the HMS Endurance. "Some environmentalists now want to limit flights. We are going out to investigate."


*** Listen.com wants Scour assets
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Internet music site Listen.com has offered to buy the technology assets of Scour Inc. for $5 million in cash and more than 500,000 shares of stock. Los Angeles-based Scour distributes a file-sharing program that offers access to music and video files, including movie trailers and allegedly illegal copies of full-length films. The company triggered a lawsuit in July brought by every major Hollywood studio and ultimately led Scour to file for bankruptcy protection. The offer to buy Scour's assets was approved by the
boards of both companies. It still has to be approved by U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Los Angeles. According to the agreement, filed with the court Wednesday, San Francisco-based Listen.com will buy Scour's file-sharing technology and computer equipment. Scour had attracted high-profile investors, including Michael Ovitz, a former agent and president of the Walt Disney Co., but the lawsuit scared away additional investors.

link |

Thursday, November 02, 2000

13:27 The bardo of language
Will I ever learn when to use 'in', 'on', or 'at'? (Thanks for the corrections Richie)
It seems my English has stagnated and my Dutch, well, it isn't really progressing. Portuguese, my mother tongue, seems to remain stable (against all odds) but I do feel awkward whenever I speak it. I notice the words coming out of my mouth and they surprise me.
link |

Wednesday, November 01, 2000

18:29 And meanwhile...
From the official press-release:

BERTELSMANN AND NAPSTER FORM STRATEGIC ALLIANCE
Will Establish Industry Accepted Community for File Sharing
Invite Others in Music Industry to Participate

Bertelsmann eCommerce Group owns BMG music, bol.com, cdnow and barnesandnoble.com.

The Napster newspage announces that a new membership system will be implemented. Expected price: $4.95 a month.

from RedHerring:
So what will new users get for $4.95 a month? Andreas Schmidt, president of BECG, said during Tuesday's press conference that users will get high-quality digital downloads, instead of files originating from users, which range in quality from high to lousy.

link |

18:15 SX
The time has come for quicktime paradise - since Monday I have been experimenting with Scour Exchange - the multimedia brother of Napster. Lots of cult little clips to be searched for (the current beta version of SX runs only on PCs).
link |

13:31 Quote
From a friend who does like the word 'wee':

it is truly the most wonderful word ever invented
the only major consolation for being scottish
i've even got a poem about it somewhere

link |