aka Dennis Moser — Citoyen du monde: Peregrinator, photographer, retired librarian/archivist/academic, musician, teacher of English to foreigners, and sometime writer... Due to bureaucratic nonsense, I have left Europe. I DID not return to the US, I took a left turn at the Calgary airport and am a refugee trying to learn to understand, and maybe speak, "Jouai" over here amongst the Quebecois.
I’m linking this from both The Blue (MetaFilter) and directly to The Guardian website with the original story.
If, like me and some of the others over on Metafilter, you find the narrative presented in The Guardian seems to be a little odd in it’s arc and presentatin, I do suggest reading the comments over on MetaFilter. It is a very strange story.
Our nights are getting brighter and we are finally beginning to understand why that might not be such a great thing. While many of us have been aware of various manifestations, from insect and bird behavior to satellite pollution, there continue to be new perspectives on it daily.
On a personal level, I came to realize the impact of discrete periods of true dark and light were having on me after making a trip to Houston, Texas after living in Fairbanks, Alaska for several years. I had become adjusted to the extremes of day and night length, given the latitude there in Alaska and the quick trip to Houston, in high summer, was a bit of a shocker. I know that some of it was a result of time zone differences, but after a week there, I was still keenly sensitive to a kind of bodily “disconnect” with the day lengths.
Since then, I have been much more sensitive to these differences and found this article of some interest —
The machines are slowly churning up to action, hosting providers waking up, content bubbling in the cauldrons of creation even as we type!
All of which is to say, I got the computers connected to their respective mixers and interfaces, some of the synths, both software and hardware, connected and recognizing their respective controllers, and have been working on the network side of things…
So watch this space for announcements of new URLs for the streaming service websites. Some fun stuff ahead, I promise.
Sometimes it feels like it would be nice to make a blog post via a mobile device. I do use a tablet from time to time, but our smartphones are, indeed, small handheld computers so I’m reminding myself of that fact.
I love/hate copyright. I totally embraced the idea of the Creative Commons because it allowed artists to share their work as they saw fit, even earn money back for their creative efforts if they chose. Or, more radical, give it away for free.
The lack of consistent recognition and application of “copyright” globally has resulted in a hodgepodge of regulations that honestly just get in the way. Amazon is among the greatest offender of this, if only because of their global reach. They have made my my reading life a living hell.
Before I left the US, using Amazon to get both physical and the early digital books (digital incunables?) was relatively painless. Yes, I used other bookstores where I could — especially for out of print or obscure titles — and was happy to do so. The situation began to change for me shortlyafter I attended Rare Books School at UVA1 and David Seaman loaned me a Sony device that ran the Microsoft ebook reader. While I was there, I managed to get to read Dracula and saw how what I had learned in class could be put to use. This was important, as the ebook format wars were just getting started.
Of course, along with the format wars, there was the “copyright” issue, the proverbial 800-pound monster in the corner (insert your favorite metaphor here). At its best, copyright is a patchwork of agreements and regulations that not everyone adheres to and it rapidly got worse with the digitization of works across the globe.
The first-hand observer version: it was in Germany that I first encountered the problem. I could not use the US Apple Store for purchasing apps and software, the VPNs didn’t work. Netflix and Amazon had the same restrictions. So I had to create new accounts. Things were slightly better in France, at least, because being in the EU, those new accounts were still functional. Of course, ANYTHING from the UK was problematic.
Now that I’m in Canada there are still more changes. Apple recognizes the new ID set up in Germany, Amazon required me to change my location, so everything from the previous “wish lists” disappeared and I had to start over with new ones. Using Prime Video required a third ID but weirdly the lists work. Netflix shows me French and English listings, but I’m not sure if it’s showing me US titles or EU ones, but no new ID needed.
But the books — it’s frustrating as hell not being able to get a title, especially when trying to replace ones that were left behind in the US, either digitally or physically.
It all comes down to the publishers — it always has been a struggle between the creator and the distributor, ever since the very first printing presses were unleashed nearly 600 years ago.
I was there for one of the very first workshops on the use of XML for creating flexibly encoded digital texts for multiple display formats, an integral part of creating digital libraries for physical libraries such as the ones I worked in at University of Wyoming and University of Alaska, Fairbanks. ↩︎
Year 020261 continues to ask that we hold its beer. The headline greeting me at 03:00 today was weird. The dreams from which I awoke were weird. The world has surely gone mad — that, or I have. Or both.
Or neither? Perhaps it’s always been just this weird all along and the madness is thinking otherwise?
Between this, the “Weekend at Mitch’s2” scenario that has been playing out for the past three weeks, the Maine Democratic Party’s trainwreck3 in realtime, and the ever-eroding conditions of Fearless Leader’s mental and physical health, the curse of intersting times lies heavy upon us — seemingly more than other earlier times.
Of course, for every generation, the Apocalypse is always nigh, the Nuclear Clock creeping ever close to some new scenario of annihilation. We can see it in the stories we tell ourselves, our fiction, our sci-fi and horror films, all the fantasies we conjure up, turning them into commodities, and call amusement.
I guess it only ends with the death of the Sun… though this present consciousness will probably not be aware of it — the timeline is too short.
OR: “… I can’t help it, I wonder what’s gone wrong”
It’s funny: In German and English, we recognize the birthdate with “Happy Birthday” or “Fröhliche Gebürtstag” but in French, we recognize the “anniversary”of the day —”Bon anniversaire.”
So, no, not a “happy birthday” for you, US of A. We will acknowledge that you have managed to last 250 years, but happiness is in somewhat short supply today.
It was with tears in my eyes that I posted this over on the Book of Failures. The lyrics are those of the version that Giddens and Simon performed at the Grammy salute to Simon. The change in lyrics is ever-more important today of all days.
“Many’s the time I’ve been mistaken And many times confused Yes, and I’ve often felt forsaken And certainly misused
Oh, but I’m alright, I’m alright I’m just weary to my bones Still, you don’t expect to be bright and bon vivant So far away from home, so far away from home
I don’t know a soul who’s not been battered I don’t have a friend who feels at ease I don’t know a dream that’s not been shattered Or driven to its knees
But it’s alright, it’s alright For we lived so well so long Still, when I think of the Road we’re traveling on I wonder what’s gone wrong I can’t help it, I wonder what’s gone wrong
And I dreamed I was dying I dreamed that my soul rose unexpectedly And looking back down at me Smiled reassuringly
And I dreamed I was flying And high up above my eyes could clearly see The Statue of Liberty Sailing away to sea And I dreamed I was flying
~ “We didn’t come here on The Mayflower We came in a ship in a blood red moon” ~ [ORIGINAL: We come on the ship they call The Mayflower We come on the ship that sailed the moon] We come in the age’s most uncertain hours And sing an American tune
Oh, and it’s alright, it’s alright, it’s alright You can’t be forever blessed Still, tomorrow’s going to be another working day And I’m trying to get some rest That’s all I’m trying to get some rest.”
Some days this really gets tedious; yet another post that can’t go through META, so here goes:
The title of the post sets the tone immediately. And yeah, the RoboCop analogy is definitely on target here.
“Startup Testing Drugs on Freshly Extracted Human Brains That Are Kept On Life Support“
from the text:
“The company is extracting human brains just hours after their owners died and then hooking them up to specialized life support machines, Science reports. While the masses of pink mush no longer host electrical activity, most of their key functions remain intact, allowing scientists to test experimental drugs, such as potential treatments for Alzheimer’s disease, like never before.”
I will not be performing at the “Freedom 250” event at the White House…
😇😀
(there seems to be some serious weirdness going on here, with WordPress, Jetpack, and my hosting service — two slightly different versions of this blog appear to exist…a result of leaving France, apparently.)
