McCain's running mate, Sarah Palin, tried to have the local library cleaned up to better suit her crazy-ass ideals[1]. When the librarian baulked at this stupid request, she allegedly threatened to fire her.
Stein says that as mayor, Palin continued to inject religious beliefs into her policy at times. "She asked the library how she could go about banning books," he says, because some voters thought they had inappropriate language in them. "The librarian was aghast." That woman, Mary Ellen Baker, couldn't be reached for comment, but news reports from the time show that Palin had threatened to fire Baker for not giving "full support" to the mayor.
From Time Magazine's article, Mayor Palin: A Rough Record
In fact, trying to get people fired who didn't do her Imperial Bidding seems to be a recurring theme throughout the article.
[1] Looking carefully at the wording of the Time article it seems her crazy-ass ideals in this case weren't her Creationism, her belief that God requested the Iraq war, or her intention to force women to turn the control of their bodies over to the government, but her other crazy-ass ideal, getting herself vOtES.
Here's a vid of a couple of conservative commentators talking about McCain's choice, not knowing their mics are still live. They don't sound bowled over.
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Singing to a Notion
I've mentioned the gym-goers' habit of listening to music while climbing to nowhere on the stairstepper before.
Today I saw a new phenomenon - the two women next to me were singing out loud as they listened to their MP3 players. Not in a quiet mumble or accidental lyrical leakage either, but while flinging their arms around and doing facial contortions, in fact performing the full singerly mannerisms as normally seen on TV. Unfortunately, cellphone cameras are banned in the gym so I can't show it to you. Anyway, I don't have a cellphone.
It occurs to me they were trying to drown out the sounds of the Republican National Convention on the gym's TVs. Which is probably a smart move.
Today I saw a new phenomenon - the two women next to me were singing out loud as they listened to their MP3 players. Not in a quiet mumble or accidental lyrical leakage either, but while flinging their arms around and doing facial contortions, in fact performing the full singerly mannerisms as normally seen on TV. Unfortunately, cellphone cameras are banned in the gym so I can't show it to you. Anyway, I don't have a cellphone.
It occurs to me they were trying to drown out the sounds of the Republican National Convention on the gym's TVs. Which is probably a smart move.
Tuesday, September 02, 2008
Forever Young
What will the world be like in 20 years time, when all the current teenagers are angling for jobs as managers, politicians, gynecologists and any other professions where people attempt to check if you're an asshat before hiring you? This question came up on James Nicoll's live journal, stirred by the fuss over Whatsername Palin's pregnant 17 year old daughter.
When I was growing up, most of the crap I spouted was either to friends who were in no chemical state to remember it, or confined to paper notebooks I have under lock and key. Today's kids live life online. Each person's Facebook tells more about them than everything I have out there, including my embarrassing love letters and the soppy letter to the Beatles asking them not to break up. Under those circumstances, it's hard to imagine anyone passing a background check. Everybody does something that is, if not illegal, at least severely irritating to prospective employers or voters. Now it'll be online forever.
Yes, it will. Even if Facebook goes bust tomorrow, there's the Wayback Machine, which stores everything ever written on the web.
On James' LJ, there are a number of opinions. Some say that today's indiscretions will not be a sin tomorrow - underage drinking? Premarital sex? No one will care. Others feel that savvy kids will be cagey and not disclose these things online, even going so far as to avoid being photographed near a keg at college in case it's used against them later.
I think that something else will happen. There'll be so much information, and it will be so scattered, that most people will assume it's fake. If someone tells you John Smith fathered a baby with a 15 year old and here's a picture of the baby, you might believe it - now. I don't think people in the fyootcher will give it a second glance. They'll apply a cui bono test to any disclosure of information.
Of course, a population trained not to believe evidence is vulnerable to many other sicknesses. I'm not saying that's what I want; I'm saying that's what we'll get.
Courtesy of a link from James' commenters, here's a lovely song wishing MySpace and Facebook hell on tomorrow's parents.
MyHope, by sweetafton23.
When I was growing up, most of the crap I spouted was either to friends who were in no chemical state to remember it, or confined to paper notebooks I have under lock and key. Today's kids live life online. Each person's Facebook tells more about them than everything I have out there, including my embarrassing love letters and the soppy letter to the Beatles asking them not to break up. Under those circumstances, it's hard to imagine anyone passing a background check. Everybody does something that is, if not illegal, at least severely irritating to prospective employers or voters. Now it'll be online forever.
Yes, it will. Even if Facebook goes bust tomorrow, there's the Wayback Machine, which stores everything ever written on the web.
On James' LJ, there are a number of opinions. Some say that today's indiscretions will not be a sin tomorrow - underage drinking? Premarital sex? No one will care. Others feel that savvy kids will be cagey and not disclose these things online, even going so far as to avoid being photographed near a keg at college in case it's used against them later.
I think that something else will happen. There'll be so much information, and it will be so scattered, that most people will assume it's fake. If someone tells you John Smith fathered a baby with a 15 year old and here's a picture of the baby, you might believe it - now. I don't think people in the fyootcher will give it a second glance. They'll apply a cui bono test to any disclosure of information.
Of course, a population trained not to believe evidence is vulnerable to many other sicknesses. I'm not saying that's what I want; I'm saying that's what we'll get.
Courtesy of a link from James' commenters, here's a lovely song wishing MySpace and Facebook hell on tomorrow's parents.
MyHope, by sweetafton23.
Sunday, August 31, 2008
The Two I's coffee bar
Before the Beatles, the London music scene depended on its Tin Pan Alley stable of pretty boys. Marty Wilde, Billy Fury, Tommy Steele...and many others, including Sir Cliff Richard.
Cliff and the boys were associated with the 2is Coffee Bar in Old Compton Street, Soho, and the nearby Moka Coffee Bar in Frith Street, just a short distance from the music publishers, music shops and studios of London's Tin Pan Alley. The link above is to wonderful article by Nickel in the Machine on this bubbling scene.
"In 1953 the Italian actress Gina Lollobrigida opened the Moka coffee bar at 29 Frith Street in Soho which provided London with its first Gaggia expresso coffee machine. […] Soon other coffee bars sprung up around Soho, often providing live music, and these included the Top Ten in Berwick Street plus Heaven and Hell and the Two I's next door to each other at 57 and 59 Old Compton Street respectively. Almost over night young people, who now for the first time were starting to be known as 'teen-agers' had somewhere to go they could call their own."
Starting in 1955 and taking off with the advent of skiffle, the 2is was at its height in 1958 to 1960. You know skiffle, right? Here's Jimmy Page playing skiffle in 1957.
The scene was pretty much wiped out by the Beatles and the Stones in the early sixties. Cliff was one of the few survivors, and to everyone's surprise he kept on going, and going, and going. He continues to be one of the favorites wheeled out for Royal Do's to this day, and I'm personally astonished it wasn't Cliff who was chosen for the London Olympics teaser bus last week.
He never did crack the States. The reason for that is simple. His was the old model, the hip-swivelling flouncy-quiffed singer. His band, the Shadows, was similar to the Ventures, the old model of a beat combo. The Beatles and the Stones cleaned up in the States, overturning that paradigm forever. The States no longer had time for pretty English boys past their first blush of youth, particularly one modeled on Elvis, who in 1958 had been inducted into the army and had come back a changed man himself.
By the way, if you look at a map of Soho and locate Frith Street and Old Compton Street where all these British chart toppers sprang from, a few hundred yards away to the north is Denmark Street, where the Rolling Stones first album was recorded. And just south of Old Compton Street is Gerrard Street.
You'll often see that name in Led Zeppelin lore. Books and articles call it the place where Led Zeppelin held their first rehearsal, and they always say it was a dive in Chinatown. It is in Chinatown now – there's a picture of it as the Kowloon restaurant in this blog's write up of the spot.
© Google
But as you can see when you look at the map, it's actually part of London's music area, Soho, just a few hundred yards from the 2is and the major studios. I don't know why everyone feels the need to emphasize it's in Chinatown.
Perhaps it's more exotic, more rags to riches, and most of all, perhaps it is because it downgrades the old myth, the one about how the experienced-muso-Page-was-predatory-on-inexperienced-Midland-hicks.
Cliff and the boys were associated with the 2is Coffee Bar in Old Compton Street, Soho, and the nearby Moka Coffee Bar in Frith Street, just a short distance from the music publishers, music shops and studios of London's Tin Pan Alley. The link above is to wonderful article by Nickel in the Machine on this bubbling scene.
"In 1953 the Italian actress Gina Lollobrigida opened the Moka coffee bar at 29 Frith Street in Soho which provided London with its first Gaggia expresso coffee machine. […] Soon other coffee bars sprung up around Soho, often providing live music, and these included the Top Ten in Berwick Street plus Heaven and Hell and the Two I's next door to each other at 57 and 59 Old Compton Street respectively. Almost over night young people, who now for the first time were starting to be known as 'teen-agers' had somewhere to go they could call their own."
Starting in 1955 and taking off with the advent of skiffle, the 2is was at its height in 1958 to 1960. You know skiffle, right? Here's Jimmy Page playing skiffle in 1957.
The scene was pretty much wiped out by the Beatles and the Stones in the early sixties. Cliff was one of the few survivors, and to everyone's surprise he kept on going, and going, and going. He continues to be one of the favorites wheeled out for Royal Do's to this day, and I'm personally astonished it wasn't Cliff who was chosen for the London Olympics teaser bus last week.
He never did crack the States. The reason for that is simple. His was the old model, the hip-swivelling flouncy-quiffed singer. His band, the Shadows, was similar to the Ventures, the old model of a beat combo. The Beatles and the Stones cleaned up in the States, overturning that paradigm forever. The States no longer had time for pretty English boys past their first blush of youth, particularly one modeled on Elvis, who in 1958 had been inducted into the army and had come back a changed man himself.
By the way, if you look at a map of Soho and locate Frith Street and Old Compton Street where all these British chart toppers sprang from, a few hundred yards away to the north is Denmark Street, where the Rolling Stones first album was recorded. And just south of Old Compton Street is Gerrard Street.
You'll often see that name in Led Zeppelin lore. Books and articles call it the place where Led Zeppelin held their first rehearsal, and they always say it was a dive in Chinatown. It is in Chinatown now – there's a picture of it as the Kowloon restaurant in this blog's write up of the spot.
But as you can see when you look at the map, it's actually part of London's music area, Soho, just a few hundred yards from the 2is and the major studios. I don't know why everyone feels the need to emphasize it's in Chinatown.
Perhaps it's more exotic, more rags to riches, and most of all, perhaps it is because it downgrades the old myth, the one about how the experienced-muso-Page-was-predatory-on-inexperienced-Midland-hicks.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
The Way We Were
This is the first song I remember dancing to at the local club.
Toots and the Maytals, 54-46 Was My Number.
Possibly a bit of a surprise to those who were expecting me to remember a more rockist history. I came from a skinhead town. Ska and Bluebeat were teh shit when I was a pre-teen. This is the first single I paid for with my own money.
Don't tell me you don't remember that one. Dave and Ansell Collins, Double Barrel.
Mind you, memory is a poor ephemeral thing. Each time you access a memory the original is destroyed and overwritten by your memory of the memory. Here is an article that starts out discussing Photoshop and the creation of false impressions by photographic fakery: Photography as a weapon, by the NY Times.
It's interesting that there is no foolproof way to detect a faked photograph, except in the case that you're given the original and you can compare it. (Aha, said the reporter to the expert, in that case how would you know the original was not itself doctored? The expert was flummoxed. Methinks the reporter must be the Ghost of Philip K Dick.)
Says the writer: There’s a remarkable story about the forging of the Hitler diaries. The forger was so prolific, he created so many forgeries — letters, watercolors, diaries, etc. — that handwriting analysts (charged with the task of authenticating the diaries) took writing examples done by the forger thinking they were genuine examples of Hitler’s handwriting and compared them to the diaries. They authenticated the diaries on that basis. Often we make a comparison between something that we believe is real and something that we believe is fake.
After a while the article goes on to the creation of false impressions by any sort of photography, particularly photos that are supplied with captions, and then into some musings on memory.
More from the writer: "Years ago, I was watching “Six O’Clock News,” a documentary film by Ross McElwee. In the movie, there is a scene of a television crew shooting ‘Baywatch’ from the Santa Monica pier. A year later I was standing on the Santa Monica Pier telling a producer, “The last time I was here I watched a television crew shooting ‘Baywatch.’” The producer said, “No, you weren’t. You were watching Ross McElwee’s film ‘Six O’Clock News.’ ” Of course, the producer was correct. I was confused. I had confabulated the experience of seeing something in a movie with real life."
But I think I remember 1970, and that club in my home town, and the suedeheads with their Crombies and DMs. I think so.
Toots and the Maytals, 54-46 Was My Number.
Possibly a bit of a surprise to those who were expecting me to remember a more rockist history. I came from a skinhead town. Ska and Bluebeat were teh shit when I was a pre-teen. This is the first single I paid for with my own money.
Don't tell me you don't remember that one. Dave and Ansell Collins, Double Barrel.
Mind you, memory is a poor ephemeral thing. Each time you access a memory the original is destroyed and overwritten by your memory of the memory. Here is an article that starts out discussing Photoshop and the creation of false impressions by photographic fakery: Photography as a weapon, by the NY Times.
It's interesting that there is no foolproof way to detect a faked photograph, except in the case that you're given the original and you can compare it. (Aha, said the reporter to the expert, in that case how would you know the original was not itself doctored? The expert was flummoxed. Methinks the reporter must be the Ghost of Philip K Dick.)
Says the writer: There’s a remarkable story about the forging of the Hitler diaries. The forger was so prolific, he created so many forgeries — letters, watercolors, diaries, etc. — that handwriting analysts (charged with the task of authenticating the diaries) took writing examples done by the forger thinking they were genuine examples of Hitler’s handwriting and compared them to the diaries. They authenticated the diaries on that basis. Often we make a comparison between something that we believe is real and something that we believe is fake.
After a while the article goes on to the creation of false impressions by any sort of photography, particularly photos that are supplied with captions, and then into some musings on memory.
More from the writer: "Years ago, I was watching “Six O’Clock News,” a documentary film by Ross McElwee. In the movie, there is a scene of a television crew shooting ‘Baywatch’ from the Santa Monica pier. A year later I was standing on the Santa Monica Pier telling a producer, “The last time I was here I watched a television crew shooting ‘Baywatch.’” The producer said, “No, you weren’t. You were watching Ross McElwee’s film ‘Six O’Clock News.’ ” Of course, the producer was correct. I was confused. I had confabulated the experience of seeing something in a movie with real life."
But I think I remember 1970, and that club in my home town, and the suedeheads with their Crombies and DMs. I think so.
Monday, August 25, 2008
Scottish Ghost Story
I have a Highland ghost story.
When I was a young teenager, my best friend made an arrangement for us to go to to a guesthouse near Fort William for a holiday. I never asked why or how she knew the hosts, but I guess my parents and her parents checked and approved, because we set off on the train and arrived at the station, to be picked up by the man of the house and driven about sixty five thousand miles up a glen. I can’t remember which one, but it’s the famous one with the parallel lines way up high on the hillsides, scoring straight down the valley where the glacial lake lapped at the rock and steadily rose as the glacier pushed the water higher into the hills.
So we got there – approximately 2 astronomical units from the nearest other house, with the expectation that two weeks of hiking would do our young budding bodies good, or something.
Our host was a ghillie. His regular job was to help the English hunters catch deer. On one of our trips out into the torrential rain, he explained that he knew all the deer more or less personally, so he pointed out the sick and old and bad-tempered ones to the hunters and used their guns as a way to keep the herd healthy. And I’m glad he explained it that way because the weird thing is, he and his wife were vegan. Not even vegetarian, but vegan. So for two weeks we lived in the Scottish equivalent of Bron-yr-Aur, hemmed in by fantastic mists like something from MacBeth and eating nut milk, soy butter, protein from plants I’ve never heard of and generally getting an education in the ways of the world.
Also getting glommed on to by a tick. First and last time for that, luckily.
After a few days, afraid my skin was going to slough off as if from a drowned corpse due to all the healthy rain (and the mist, which was at least as wet as the rain), I started staying in. And this guy had the most amazing collection of books I have ever read. They weren’t occult books, per se, but counterculture/alternative books where he had, I assume, started with veganism and gone on to the fringes of the lifestyle in his reading. So I read about Tantrism and Buddhism and a dozen other things, along with a firm grounding in J I Rodale’s food philosophies that broadened my mind as much, or more, than anything else I’ve ever done. He also had a nylon-string guitar and a banjo, and I have to say that the banjo expanded my consciousness significantly as well. I'd never considered the possibility of an instrument with a moveable bridge. Fascinating.
It was tough not even having milk. After a week we escaped, squelched down the glen and thumbed a lift from someone to Ft William where we devoured a Chinese Meal with as much meat in it as we could afford and then, refreshed, hitched back up to Vegan Land.
At some point we were driven (or perhaps took the train) along the whole length of Loch Ness to Inverness. Foyers is on the opposite side of the loch to the main road, but I spent the entire journey staring across the loch looking for Boleskine House. My friend assumed I was looking for the Loch Ness Monster. I didn’t see it. Houses didn’t come with great big red Google Map balloons pointing to them in those days. I didn’t see Nessie either. But Loch Ness looked like the sort of place where misty monsters could manifest.
One night in the guest house, it was dark – and I mean dark – outside and there was one dim lamp on in the reading room. Everyone else was in bed, presumably using the sheets as a sort of wick to dry themselves out. I was avidly consuming some mysterious cult book about Kundalini, Kasha, or vitamin K when the guitar, standing on a shelf behind me, suddenly sang out.
I did not just hear that.
I went on reading. The guitar sounded again, a sweet, quiet G. I looked at it and tried to get my hair to flatten back down on my scalp. It did it again. I put the book down, deciding that I was just going to have to acknowledge it, and stepped cautiously up to the guitar. As I did so, a housefly that had been sitting on the G string took off, plucking it with its sticky feet as it did so, a quiet, plangent twang.
Not a supernatural call to adventure at all then. Just a fly. Although they do call Beelzebub Lord of the Flies, don’t they?
Later, the ghillie took us out to his deer and I saw a magnificent buck, a Monarch of the Glen. He was beautiful.
And that’s my Scottish ghost story.
If you want to learn more about Scotland, why not subscribe to the William McGonagall poem server? It will email you a poetic gem by the unmatched Scottish bard McGonagall on the day(s) of the week of your own choosing. I've been subscribed for years and McGonagall's poems never fail to surprise me.
When I was a young teenager, my best friend made an arrangement for us to go to to a guesthouse near Fort William for a holiday. I never asked why or how she knew the hosts, but I guess my parents and her parents checked and approved, because we set off on the train and arrived at the station, to be picked up by the man of the house and driven about sixty five thousand miles up a glen. I can’t remember which one, but it’s the famous one with the parallel lines way up high on the hillsides, scoring straight down the valley where the glacial lake lapped at the rock and steadily rose as the glacier pushed the water higher into the hills.
So we got there – approximately 2 astronomical units from the nearest other house, with the expectation that two weeks of hiking would do our young budding bodies good, or something.
Our host was a ghillie. His regular job was to help the English hunters catch deer. On one of our trips out into the torrential rain, he explained that he knew all the deer more or less personally, so he pointed out the sick and old and bad-tempered ones to the hunters and used their guns as a way to keep the herd healthy. And I’m glad he explained it that way because the weird thing is, he and his wife were vegan. Not even vegetarian, but vegan. So for two weeks we lived in the Scottish equivalent of Bron-yr-Aur, hemmed in by fantastic mists like something from MacBeth and eating nut milk, soy butter, protein from plants I’ve never heard of and generally getting an education in the ways of the world.
Also getting glommed on to by a tick. First and last time for that, luckily.
After a few days, afraid my skin was going to slough off as if from a drowned corpse due to all the healthy rain (and the mist, which was at least as wet as the rain), I started staying in. And this guy had the most amazing collection of books I have ever read. They weren’t occult books, per se, but counterculture/alternative books where he had, I assume, started with veganism and gone on to the fringes of the lifestyle in his reading. So I read about Tantrism and Buddhism and a dozen other things, along with a firm grounding in J I Rodale’s food philosophies that broadened my mind as much, or more, than anything else I’ve ever done. He also had a nylon-string guitar and a banjo, and I have to say that the banjo expanded my consciousness significantly as well. I'd never considered the possibility of an instrument with a moveable bridge. Fascinating.
It was tough not even having milk. After a week we escaped, squelched down the glen and thumbed a lift from someone to Ft William where we devoured a Chinese Meal with as much meat in it as we could afford and then, refreshed, hitched back up to Vegan Land.
At some point we were driven (or perhaps took the train) along the whole length of Loch Ness to Inverness. Foyers is on the opposite side of the loch to the main road, but I spent the entire journey staring across the loch looking for Boleskine House. My friend assumed I was looking for the Loch Ness Monster. I didn’t see it. Houses didn’t come with great big red Google Map balloons pointing to them in those days. I didn’t see Nessie either. But Loch Ness looked like the sort of place where misty monsters could manifest.
One night in the guest house, it was dark – and I mean dark – outside and there was one dim lamp on in the reading room. Everyone else was in bed, presumably using the sheets as a sort of wick to dry themselves out. I was avidly consuming some mysterious cult book about Kundalini, Kasha, or vitamin K when the guitar, standing on a shelf behind me, suddenly sang out.
I did not just hear that.
I went on reading. The guitar sounded again, a sweet, quiet G. I looked at it and tried to get my hair to flatten back down on my scalp. It did it again. I put the book down, deciding that I was just going to have to acknowledge it, and stepped cautiously up to the guitar. As I did so, a housefly that had been sitting on the G string took off, plucking it with its sticky feet as it did so, a quiet, plangent twang.
Not a supernatural call to adventure at all then. Just a fly. Although they do call Beelzebub Lord of the Flies, don’t they?
Later, the ghillie took us out to his deer and I saw a magnificent buck, a Monarch of the Glen. He was beautiful.
And that’s my Scottish ghost story.
If you want to learn more about Scotland, why not subscribe to the William McGonagall poem server? It will email you a poetic gem by the unmatched Scottish bard McGonagall on the day(s) of the week of your own choosing. I've been subscribed for years and McGonagall's poems never fail to surprise me.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Jimmy Page and Leona Lewis at the Olympics.
Pre-performance Jimmy Page interview, in which he says his sport at school was hurdling. Who'da thunk? Those long legs, I guess.
Here is a link to the official CBC or NBS or whoever they are video of Whole Lotta Love. They've asserted copyright, so YouTube links will break. To go to their website, click on the Flame In My Heart Can't Get My Fill pic below:
This is a video link: click it!OK Mag's photos of the ceremony, high quality
My screencaps, not so high quality
Saturday, August 23, 2008
Lotus Elan
I'm all excited about Jimmy Page being in the handover for the Olympics at the Closing Ceremony tomorrow. The chance of any British extravaganza not sucking has to be about 0.01%, and the chance of Jimmy Page being able to face a crowd of 32 million sober has to be fairly low (although getting higher every day), but the tiny chance it's going to be wonderful has me feeling all teenage and jittery.
I'm pretty sure that the organizers for the London Olympics had no clue that Whole Lotta Love was a Zeppelin tune. I think the meeting went like this:
O1: What screams London to the world?
O2: Ehhhh....Pearly Queens, London Buses, Boris Johnson, aaahhhh, Top of the Pops? Eel Pie with Green Liquor, X-Factor, the Kray Brothers...
O1: Top of the Pops?
O2: That riff...y'know, da DA da DA dah!
O2: Brilliant. We'll do it. Wasn't that Led Zeppelin?
And of course it wasn't. The riff used to introduce TOTP from 1971 to 1977 was played by session musicians, based on the CCS cover version, and that is the one drilled into Britons like Jerusalem the generation before.
There was a brief return of it in 1980, and then a new remix of Whole Lotta Love was produced by a different band in 1998. I can't say I've ever heard it. It served as a booster shot for the inoculation, though.
I bet that's what the organizers thought they had bought, until some Freemason at the Beeb mentioned it to Jimmy at their club and learned the background.
Quoted in Sporting Life, Jimmy says he was overwhelmed to have been asked to use his song for the handover ceremony.
He said: "Initially they requested to use 'Whole Lotta Love', then it was 'you can play guitar on it if you want to'. Then it was said Leona was going to sing on it, and it just got a momentum of it's own. It's going to be really great.
"The Olympics is going to bring a whole spirit of optimism to London and it's going to be fantastic."
That seems to line up with my theory.
The Grauniad yesterday described the ceremony in more detail. The official handover always begins with the flag being handed to the president of the International Olympic Committee, who in this case will pass it to Boris Johnson (for it is he), the Mayor of London. The flag has to be waved six times. After that there will be a lot of business with a London bus - the famous double decker that Londoners don't actually use any more. After that, according to the Guardian:
As the people in the queue dance beneath their brollies, the bus will begin a transformation, its roof opening like a lotus flower to reveal a stage. Leona Lewis will emerge on a platform to perform an R&B aria. Meanwhile, Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page will appear at the other end of the bus and strike out the opening chords of Whole Lotta Love. In order to meet the eight-minute limit the song has been curtailed, but to Page's delight now cuts straight to the solo.
As the duet climaxes, Beckham rises up on a third platform clutching the football flanked by a cellist and violinist in Team GB kit, and kicks the ball into the athletes packed in the centre field of the stadium. The bus departs, transformed into an ersatz carnival float.
Stephen Powell, the creative director, said the intention was to create a quintessentially British moment.
Unfortunately, to me, the quintessential British moment, is the one when something goes wrong - the pod not opening in Spinal Tap, or the mad scientist unable to find the right plug for his time transducer in Help!
Hopefully, Becks and Pagey and co. will prove me wrong.
...
I'm pretty sure that the organizers for the London Olympics had no clue that Whole Lotta Love was a Zeppelin tune. I think the meeting went like this:
O1: What screams London to the world?
O2: Ehhhh....Pearly Queens, London Buses, Boris Johnson, aaahhhh, Top of the Pops? Eel Pie with Green Liquor, X-Factor, the Kray Brothers...
O1: Top of the Pops?
O2: That riff...y'know, da DA da DA dah!
O2: Brilliant. We'll do it. Wasn't that Led Zeppelin?
And of course it wasn't. The riff used to introduce TOTP from 1971 to 1977 was played by session musicians, based on the CCS cover version, and that is the one drilled into Britons like Jerusalem the generation before.
There was a brief return of it in 1980, and then a new remix of Whole Lotta Love was produced by a different band in 1998. I can't say I've ever heard it. It served as a booster shot for the inoculation, though.
I bet that's what the organizers thought they had bought, until some Freemason at the Beeb mentioned it to Jimmy at their club and learned the background.
Quoted in Sporting Life, Jimmy says he was overwhelmed to have been asked to use his song for the handover ceremony.
He said: "Initially they requested to use 'Whole Lotta Love', then it was 'you can play guitar on it if you want to'. Then it was said Leona was going to sing on it, and it just got a momentum of it's own. It's going to be really great.
"The Olympics is going to bring a whole spirit of optimism to London and it's going to be fantastic."
That seems to line up with my theory.
The Grauniad yesterday described the ceremony in more detail. The official handover always begins with the flag being handed to the president of the International Olympic Committee, who in this case will pass it to Boris Johnson (for it is he), the Mayor of London. The flag has to be waved six times. After that there will be a lot of business with a London bus - the famous double decker that Londoners don't actually use any more. After that, according to the Guardian:
As the people in the queue dance beneath their brollies, the bus will begin a transformation, its roof opening like a lotus flower to reveal a stage. Leona Lewis will emerge on a platform to perform an R&B aria. Meanwhile, Led Zeppelin guitarist Jimmy Page will appear at the other end of the bus and strike out the opening chords of Whole Lotta Love. In order to meet the eight-minute limit the song has been curtailed, but to Page's delight now cuts straight to the solo.
As the duet climaxes, Beckham rises up on a third platform clutching the football flanked by a cellist and violinist in Team GB kit, and kicks the ball into the athletes packed in the centre field of the stadium. The bus departs, transformed into an ersatz carnival float.
Stephen Powell, the creative director, said the intention was to create a quintessentially British moment.
Unfortunately, to me, the quintessential British moment, is the one when something goes wrong - the pod not opening in Spinal Tap, or the mad scientist unable to find the right plug for his time transducer in Help!
Hopefully, Becks and Pagey and co. will prove me wrong.
...
Friday, August 22, 2008
Anything Goes
...
In olden days a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking
Now heaven knows, anything
Goes
We were talking about bad words, weren't we?
Here's a funny clip from 1967. The Rolling Stones came on the Ed Sullivan show to play their hit, "Let's Spend the Night Together". Sullivan found the chorus 'objectionable', and told the Stones to sing "Let's Spend Some Time Together" instead.
Yes, they sang the expurgated version, with grimaces and rolling eyes.
That was 41 years ago. Since then we've completed, or at least trolled along the pathway of, the Sexual Revolution. Nowadays, songs aren't censored. They just have parental advisory stickers.
The Olympic Closing ceremony on Sunday will feature a duet by Jimmy Page and Leona Lewis. They will be playing "Whole Lotta Love", chosen because its riff is instantly recognizable all over the world - and particularly in Britain, where it was the siren call of Top of the Pops for seven years.
Today the Daily Torygraph reports that Whole Lotta Love (b. 1969) is 'too racy' for the Olympics.
But, according to London 2012 officials, Lewis - who grew up in east London close to the Olympic site - requested a change to the song's second verse because she was worried they would not make sense for a female singer.
In the original, recorded in 1969, frontman Robert Plant sings, "I'm gonna give you every inch of my love".
But in the version that will be sung tomorrow, however, Lewis changes the words to "every bit" of my love.
The band also agreed to a request from organisers to drop the third verse, which includes similar sexual innuendoes, to fit in to the eight-minute performance.
The title of that Telegraph piece is Led Zeppelin classic 'too racy' for Olympics: It has been delighting fans for almost 40 years but Led Zeppelin's rock classic "Whole Lotta Love" has been deemed too racy by Olympics organisers.
I read the article all the way through. Nowhere is there a quote that says the song is 'too racy'. No other news source says 'too racy'.
The request to change the lyric came from Leona Lewis, 23, who seemed to think the lyric was anatomically impossible, when sung by a woman, not too racy. The organizers apparently only wanted to cut the length. (Ouch!) It seems that the single quote marks around 'too racy' in the headline means "We're a tabloid! We make this stuff up!" rather than y'know, signifying an actual quote.
But the dependably offendable Daily Telegraph says it's too racy. Score another one for rock'n'roll. The song is 39 years old and still scares the DT. (Pats DT reassuringly on head.)
One thing I love about rock 'n' roll is it still freaks the wrinklies out.
In olden days a glimpse of stocking
Was looked on as something shocking
Now heaven knows, anything
Goes
We were talking about bad words, weren't we?
Here's a funny clip from 1967. The Rolling Stones came on the Ed Sullivan show to play their hit, "Let's Spend the Night Together". Sullivan found the chorus 'objectionable', and told the Stones to sing "Let's Spend Some Time Together" instead.
Yes, they sang the expurgated version, with grimaces and rolling eyes.
That was 41 years ago. Since then we've completed, or at least trolled along the pathway of, the Sexual Revolution. Nowadays, songs aren't censored. They just have parental advisory stickers.
The Olympic Closing ceremony on Sunday will feature a duet by Jimmy Page and Leona Lewis. They will be playing "Whole Lotta Love", chosen because its riff is instantly recognizable all over the world - and particularly in Britain, where it was the siren call of Top of the Pops for seven years.
Today the Daily Torygraph reports that Whole Lotta Love (b. 1969) is 'too racy' for the Olympics.
But, according to London 2012 officials, Lewis - who grew up in east London close to the Olympic site - requested a change to the song's second verse because she was worried they would not make sense for a female singer.
In the original, recorded in 1969, frontman Robert Plant sings, "I'm gonna give you every inch of my love".
But in the version that will be sung tomorrow, however, Lewis changes the words to "every bit" of my love.
The band also agreed to a request from organisers to drop the third verse, which includes similar sexual innuendoes, to fit in to the eight-minute performance.
The title of that Telegraph piece is Led Zeppelin classic 'too racy' for Olympics: It has been delighting fans for almost 40 years but Led Zeppelin's rock classic "Whole Lotta Love" has been deemed too racy by Olympics organisers.
I read the article all the way through. Nowhere is there a quote that says the song is 'too racy'. No other news source says 'too racy'.
The request to change the lyric came from Leona Lewis, 23, who seemed to think the lyric was anatomically impossible, when sung by a woman, not too racy. The organizers apparently only wanted to cut the length. (Ouch!) It seems that the single quote marks around 'too racy' in the headline means "We're a tabloid! We make this stuff up!" rather than y'know, signifying an actual quote.
But the dependably offendable Daily Telegraph says it's too racy. Score another one for rock'n'roll. The song is 39 years old and still scares the DT. (Pats DT reassuringly on head.)
One thing I love about rock 'n' roll is it still freaks the wrinklies out.
Overcoming Lars Porsena
Lars Porsena of Clusium
By the nine gods he swore
Talking of censorship, it's amusing to see one of my favorite blogs, Making Light, wading into the swamp of 'decency'. It seems so not their thing. Not that they are indecent, mind.
In The honor of your assistance is requested in a small matter of language their contributor, Abi, has been asked to provide a list of Bad Words that you should not be able to use to tag/describe a book in a database, because the word is 'offensive'. She asked the Making Light regulars to help her.
This is a task that doesn't have an answer, but if you're still required to do it, the best thing to do would be to buy an off-the-shelf nanny program. But she didn't, so if you read the blog post and the comments, you can read many, many people struggling with many, many rude words. Some of them you really wouldn't want your book tagged with. Some are just silly. (Warning: naughty words at the link.)
I'm not going to comment there, as people have already said what I would have said (above). The arguments are not about whether someone should be able to tag items with rude words - the default assumption seems to be that offensive terms are at best unhelpful, and I agree with that. The arguments are about what constitutes a rude word in the first place.
I work in a medical field. The first thing I learned about networked computers is that they couldn't tell the difference between someone looking up "breast" because he was a bored heterosexual man, and a woman looking up "breast cancer" because she was very, very afraid and lonely and needed help with her diagnosis as soon as possible before she broke down and lost it. Aha, you might say, leave 'breast' in, and disallow 'ginormous knockers'. Yes - good point. But the number of synonyms for 'ginormous knockers' - huge bazooms etc. - is very large, and the scalpel needed to excise the medical/artistic uses of 'breast' from the bored-heterosexual-men uses of 'breast' is very fine indeed.
I won't go on, as the 177 comments so far on the original post cover this territory and more. Just a few comments - I was absolutely alarmed at one of the commenter's claims that he'd used a public library that hadn't let him research Ancient Persia adequately because it blocked the word 'Aryan'. What was the programmer thinking? Don't tell me, I know what they were thinking, but why they thought it was either their mandate to do so or that they could do it correctly, I really don't know.
My motto is Humani Nihil A Me Alienum Puto. I tried to enter this into Google from work one day and got reported to Human Resources. Apparently, 'puto' is a rude word to someone. Perhaps, but it's a common non-rude word in Latin.
I was also taken by the Brit in the comments at Making Light who wanted the well known rude words 'scrubber' and 'slag' banned. That would cut out a couple of useful terms for tagging industrial processes. There was a special plea from at least one gay guy not to have 'gay' on the list of banned words. Yes, you can call someone 'gay' and be insulting, but sometimes people really are gay, and like it that way.
There is also discussion of the famous Scunthorpe, a town in England that does not appear on a lot of searches to its detriment, and Penistone, a town near where I was born.
My advice? Just give it up.
...
By the nine gods he swore
Talking of censorship, it's amusing to see one of my favorite blogs, Making Light, wading into the swamp of 'decency'. It seems so not their thing. Not that they are indecent, mind.
In The honor of your assistance is requested in a small matter of language their contributor, Abi, has been asked to provide a list of Bad Words that you should not be able to use to tag/describe a book in a database, because the word is 'offensive'. She asked the Making Light regulars to help her.
This is a task that doesn't have an answer, but if you're still required to do it, the best thing to do would be to buy an off-the-shelf nanny program. But she didn't, so if you read the blog post and the comments, you can read many, many people struggling with many, many rude words. Some of them you really wouldn't want your book tagged with. Some are just silly. (Warning: naughty words at the link.)
I'm not going to comment there, as people have already said what I would have said (above). The arguments are not about whether someone should be able to tag items with rude words - the default assumption seems to be that offensive terms are at best unhelpful, and I agree with that. The arguments are about what constitutes a rude word in the first place.
I work in a medical field. The first thing I learned about networked computers is that they couldn't tell the difference between someone looking up "breast" because he was a bored heterosexual man, and a woman looking up "breast cancer" because she was very, very afraid and lonely and needed help with her diagnosis as soon as possible before she broke down and lost it. Aha, you might say, leave 'breast' in, and disallow 'ginormous knockers'. Yes - good point. But the number of synonyms for 'ginormous knockers' - huge bazooms etc. - is very large, and the scalpel needed to excise the medical/artistic uses of 'breast' from the bored-heterosexual-men uses of 'breast' is very fine indeed.
I won't go on, as the 177 comments so far on the original post cover this territory and more. Just a few comments - I was absolutely alarmed at one of the commenter's claims that he'd used a public library that hadn't let him research Ancient Persia adequately because it blocked the word 'Aryan'. What was the programmer thinking? Don't tell me, I know what they were thinking, but why they thought it was either their mandate to do so or that they could do it correctly, I really don't know.
My motto is Humani Nihil A Me Alienum Puto. I tried to enter this into Google from work one day and got reported to Human Resources. Apparently, 'puto' is a rude word to someone. Perhaps, but it's a common non-rude word in Latin.
I was also taken by the Brit in the comments at Making Light who wanted the well known rude words 'scrubber' and 'slag' banned. That would cut out a couple of useful terms for tagging industrial processes. There was a special plea from at least one gay guy not to have 'gay' on the list of banned words. Yes, you can call someone 'gay' and be insulting, but sometimes people really are gay, and like it that way.
There is also discussion of the famous Scunthorpe, a town in England that does not appear on a lot of searches to its detriment, and Penistone, a town near where I was born.
My advice? Just give it up.
...
Nibbled to death by ducks
Random House has to be the world's most craven publisher.
Today, it was in the news for pulling a book to censor it. In Once upon a time, a book for children had a very naughty word in it.... The Scotsman reports:
The author Jacqueline Wilson has come under criticism for using the insult t*** in her book My Sister Jodie, which has sold more than 150,000 copies.
Ach! Not the dreaded insult t***! How dare she! Luckily Random House was on the ball, and is reissuing the books with one letter changed. (The offending word now reads t***.)
The author of the article spoke to the voice of sanity, who said that t*** might be pretty d*rn offensive, but everything else was much worse, and we're going to heck in a handbasket and we're all gonna die. And stuff:
She pointed to the latest Batman film, The Dark Knight, which has been criticised for exposing children to violence. She said: "It should be a 15 rating at the least. It is cruel, sadistic and paints a bleak world view. And yet any child of any age can go if their parents take them, and parents assume if it's a 12A it must be OK."
Bloody films. It's all their fault.
A couple of days ago, our hero Random house was in the news for scrapping a book entirely. In Writers accuse Random House of censorship, ABC.net.au explains that:
The Jewel Of Medina by US journalist Sherry Jones tells the story of Aisha, Mohammed's favourite wife, who was promised to him when she was just six years old. They married when she was nine and he was 52.
Random House decided to pull the book after advice that it "might be offensive" to some Muslims, and "could incite acts of violence by a small radical segment".
"We stand firmly by our responsibility to support our authors and the free discussion of ideas, even those that may be construed as offensive by some.[...] In this instance we decided, after much deliberation, to postpone publication for the safety of the author, employees of Random House, booksellers and anyone else [...]
So they thought being offensive might be okay, but getting in the firing line wasn't such a good idea. In other words, yes, the terrorists did win.
But most irritating of all, Random House wants to keep its authors in line. In early August, one of the Guardian's blogs reported:
Apparently, a well-established, enormous publishing house has decided to insert the following clause into its standard contract for children's books: "If you act or behave in a way which damages your reputation as a person suitable to work with or be associated with children, and consequently the market for or value of the work is seriously diminished, and we may (at our option) take any of the following actions: Delay publication / Renegotiate advance / Terminate the agreement."
The publisher's name? [...] Random House.
The writer, Sian Pattenden, pours cold water on the idea and notes in passing that given the way our famous people are lauded for bad behavior, a better cap to that clause might be:
..and consequently the market for or value of the work is seriously increased, we may (at our option) take any of the following actions: Rush publication / Up the advance / Ring Richard and Judy immediately."
Quite right.
This is fussy and nannyish and irritating. Businesses can do what they want, unfortunately. As long as it doesn’t go against a protected freedom, like religion or sexual orientation, they can tell their authors how to behave. But there are two problems that I see with this stupid contract. First, they won’t get famous, interesting authors, and second, it's not going to stand up in a court of law.
No established author is going to put their name to a dumb, vaguely-worded paragraph that orders them to be upright citizens. Who is going to decide if someone has acted or behaved in a way that damages their reputation? More substantially, how are they going to enforce the contract? Now, Random House could have said they have a right to drop a contract if the writer is convicted of whatever a felony is called in England. (I have forgotten.) Bringing the work into disrepute does cost the publisher sales, and being convicted of a crime could plausibly do that. Someone in the comments to that piece brings up child molestation as a reputation damaging move. True – I'd agree with that, but child molestation is already a crime, not a personal foible.
But Random House chose not to be specific. It wants to control 'acts and behaviors". Such as? It doesn't state. If it's Associating With Bad People or Drinking Too Much, then they are in speculative realms - and trouble. If Random House tries to drop a contract on that basis, then the author is likely to sue, for defamation of character and subsequent loss of earnings (which in this case they can actually prove, since the contract has a monetary value).
And Random House can't win. Their contract states that you can’t behave in a way such that “consequently the market for or value of the work is seriously diminished”. That means to drop you for breach of contract they have to prove 1) That the value is diminished 2) That it is ‘seriously’ diminished (whatever that means – I don’t think a lawyer drafted this) and 3) That the market diminished ‘consequently’ (because of) your drinking spree or 18-year-old-Spanish-pool-boy-adultery incident.
This isn’t even a case of “OMG won’t somebody think of the children!” Someone points out in the comments that children used to have to behave for adults, now adults have to behave for the children. In fact, Random House isn't trying that line. It specifically mentions market and value – it has to, in fact, as English law recognizes monetary loss, not non-specific ‘damage’ to individuals.
Most authors will probably just cross the paragraph out and initial the correction. I would.
Still, the world does in some ways seem to be going back to the thirties. Allowing business any control over your private life seems topsy-turvy to me. I’m subject to random drug tests here, which pisses me the hell off. If I don’t turn in good work, or if I’m convicted of a drug crime, fair enough. But random testing is an invasion of privacy. This shit started, I guess, when someone said, “Oh my god we don’t know what PILOTS are doing and our life is in their hands! Test them!” and everybody agreed. Then the shit rolled down the slippery slope until the it swelled into a chorus of “We also don’t know what BURGER FLIPPERS are doing and our patties are in their inadequately gloved hands!”
By then, like frogs in a pot of cool water on the stove, unable to feel the heat, people just nod in agreement and let the laws roll over them. Nibbled to death by ducks, if I can mix my frog/duck metaphors.
Note: I am not a lawyer.
Thanks to C. for pointing out the contract terms.
...
Today, it was in the news for pulling a book to censor it. In Once upon a time, a book for children had a very naughty word in it.... The Scotsman reports:
The author Jacqueline Wilson has come under criticism for using the insult t*** in her book My Sister Jodie, which has sold more than 150,000 copies.
Ach! Not the dreaded insult t***! How dare she! Luckily Random House was on the ball, and is reissuing the books with one letter changed. (The offending word now reads t***.)
The author of the article spoke to the voice of sanity, who said that t*** might be pretty d*rn offensive, but everything else was much worse, and we're going to heck in a handbasket and we're all gonna die. And stuff:
She pointed to the latest Batman film, The Dark Knight, which has been criticised for exposing children to violence. She said: "It should be a 15 rating at the least. It is cruel, sadistic and paints a bleak world view. And yet any child of any age can go if their parents take them, and parents assume if it's a 12A it must be OK."
Bloody films. It's all their fault.
A couple of days ago, our hero Random house was in the news for scrapping a book entirely. In Writers accuse Random House of censorship, ABC.net.au explains that:
The Jewel Of Medina by US journalist Sherry Jones tells the story of Aisha, Mohammed's favourite wife, who was promised to him when she was just six years old. They married when she was nine and he was 52.
Random House decided to pull the book after advice that it "might be offensive" to some Muslims, and "could incite acts of violence by a small radical segment".
"We stand firmly by our responsibility to support our authors and the free discussion of ideas, even those that may be construed as offensive by some.[...] In this instance we decided, after much deliberation, to postpone publication for the safety of the author, employees of Random House, booksellers and anyone else [...]
So they thought being offensive might be okay, but getting in the firing line wasn't such a good idea. In other words, yes, the terrorists did win.
But most irritating of all, Random House wants to keep its authors in line. In early August, one of the Guardian's blogs reported:
Apparently, a well-established, enormous publishing house has decided to insert the following clause into its standard contract for children's books: "If you act or behave in a way which damages your reputation as a person suitable to work with or be associated with children, and consequently the market for or value of the work is seriously diminished, and we may (at our option) take any of the following actions: Delay publication / Renegotiate advance / Terminate the agreement."
The publisher's name? [...] Random House.
The writer, Sian Pattenden, pours cold water on the idea and notes in passing that given the way our famous people are lauded for bad behavior, a better cap to that clause might be:
..and consequently the market for or value of the work is seriously increased, we may (at our option) take any of the following actions: Rush publication / Up the advance / Ring Richard and Judy immediately."
Quite right.
This is fussy and nannyish and irritating. Businesses can do what they want, unfortunately. As long as it doesn’t go against a protected freedom, like religion or sexual orientation, they can tell their authors how to behave. But there are two problems that I see with this stupid contract. First, they won’t get famous, interesting authors, and second, it's not going to stand up in a court of law.
No established author is going to put their name to a dumb, vaguely-worded paragraph that orders them to be upright citizens. Who is going to decide if someone has acted or behaved in a way that damages their reputation? More substantially, how are they going to enforce the contract? Now, Random House could have said they have a right to drop a contract if the writer is convicted of whatever a felony is called in England. (I have forgotten.) Bringing the work into disrepute does cost the publisher sales, and being convicted of a crime could plausibly do that. Someone in the comments to that piece brings up child molestation as a reputation damaging move. True – I'd agree with that, but child molestation is already a crime, not a personal foible.
But Random House chose not to be specific. It wants to control 'acts and behaviors". Such as? It doesn't state. If it's Associating With Bad People or Drinking Too Much, then they are in speculative realms - and trouble. If Random House tries to drop a contract on that basis, then the author is likely to sue, for defamation of character and subsequent loss of earnings (which in this case they can actually prove, since the contract has a monetary value).
And Random House can't win. Their contract states that you can’t behave in a way such that “consequently the market for or value of the work is seriously diminished”. That means to drop you for breach of contract they have to prove 1) That the value is diminished 2) That it is ‘seriously’ diminished (whatever that means – I don’t think a lawyer drafted this) and 3) That the market diminished ‘consequently’ (because of) your drinking spree or 18-year-old-Spanish-pool-boy-adultery incident.
This isn’t even a case of “OMG won’t somebody think of the children!” Someone points out in the comments that children used to have to behave for adults, now adults have to behave for the children. In fact, Random House isn't trying that line. It specifically mentions market and value – it has to, in fact, as English law recognizes monetary loss, not non-specific ‘damage’ to individuals.
Most authors will probably just cross the paragraph out and initial the correction. I would.
Still, the world does in some ways seem to be going back to the thirties. Allowing business any control over your private life seems topsy-turvy to me. I’m subject to random drug tests here, which pisses me the hell off. If I don’t turn in good work, or if I’m convicted of a drug crime, fair enough. But random testing is an invasion of privacy. This shit started, I guess, when someone said, “Oh my god we don’t know what PILOTS are doing and our life is in their hands! Test them!” and everybody agreed. Then the shit rolled down the slippery slope until the it swelled into a chorus of “We also don’t know what BURGER FLIPPERS are doing and our patties are in their inadequately gloved hands!”
By then, like frogs in a pot of cool water on the stove, unable to feel the heat, people just nod in agreement and let the laws roll over them. Nibbled to death by ducks, if I can mix my frog/duck metaphors.
Note: I am not a lawyer.
Thanks to C. for pointing out the contract terms.
...
Thursday, August 21, 2008
Wearing the face that she keeps in a jar by the door
Who is it for?
Here's a case of two technologies racing for the finish line.
On the one hand, the ability to fake a face into a video stream.
The Times explains:
"Emily - the woman in the above animation - was produced using a new modelling technology that enables the most minute details of a facial expression to be captured and recreated.
She is considered to be one of the first animations to have overleapt a long-standing barrier known as 'uncanny valley' - which refers to the perception that animation looks less realistic as it approaches human likeness.
Previous methods for animating faces have involved putting dots on a face and observing the way the dots move, but Image Metrics analyses facial movements at the level of individual pixels in a video, meaning that the subtlest variations - such as the way the skin creases around the eyes, can be tracked. "
Doesn't quite work, does it? The pink blankness of the rendered area is still creepy - if that's considered to be outside the uncanny valley, I guess I'm just easily creeped.
On the other hand, the ability of computers to pick a face out of a video stream is improving by leaps and bounds.
Boingboing wrote, in May:
"In "China's All-Seeing Eye," Naomi Klein explains the terrifying and banal reality of China's new surveillance state, and the way that it represents a triumph of "Homeland Security" technology swaps between the US and China:
Their task will be to match the images to other photos of the same people in the government's massive database. Several biometrics companies, including Yao's, have been invited to compete. "We have to be able to match a face in a 10 million database in one second," Yao tells me. "We are preparing for that now."
The idea is to measure the effectiveness of face-recognition software in identifying police suspects. "
In the future, we'll all be tracked all the time. There won't be any privacy. But it won't matter; no one will care as everyone knows that all video can be doctored. Caught on camera leaving a crack den? Just deny it. You're easily faked. On the other hand, if you're relying on a Van Nuys ATM's surveillance video to exonerate you from suspicion of being in Vegas that night some stuff went down? That won't work either.
Here's a case of two technologies racing for the finish line.
On the one hand, the ability to fake a face into a video stream.
The Times explains:
"Emily - the woman in the above animation - was produced using a new modelling technology that enables the most minute details of a facial expression to be captured and recreated.
She is considered to be one of the first animations to have overleapt a long-standing barrier known as 'uncanny valley' - which refers to the perception that animation looks less realistic as it approaches human likeness.
Previous methods for animating faces have involved putting dots on a face and observing the way the dots move, but Image Metrics analyses facial movements at the level of individual pixels in a video, meaning that the subtlest variations - such as the way the skin creases around the eyes, can be tracked. "
Doesn't quite work, does it? The pink blankness of the rendered area is still creepy - if that's considered to be outside the uncanny valley, I guess I'm just easily creeped.
On the other hand, the ability of computers to pick a face out of a video stream is improving by leaps and bounds.
Boingboing wrote, in May:
"In "China's All-Seeing Eye," Naomi Klein explains the terrifying and banal reality of China's new surveillance state, and the way that it represents a triumph of "Homeland Security" technology swaps between the US and China:
Their task will be to match the images to other photos of the same people in the government's massive database. Several biometrics companies, including Yao's, have been invited to compete. "We have to be able to match a face in a 10 million database in one second," Yao tells me. "We are preparing for that now."
The idea is to measure the effectiveness of face-recognition software in identifying police suspects. "
In the future, we'll all be tracked all the time. There won't be any privacy. But it won't matter; no one will care as everyone knows that all video can be doctored. Caught on camera leaving a crack den? Just deny it. You're easily faked. On the other hand, if you're relying on a Van Nuys ATM's surveillance video to exonerate you from suspicion of being in Vegas that night some stuff went down? That won't work either.
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
Sunday, August 17, 2008
She was born to be my unicorn
The Lion and the Unicorn are the two magnificent heraldic animals on English crests. They've starred in Lewis Carroll - arguing over the lion's share of a cake. A Tyrannosaurus Rex album was entitled Unicorn and She Was Born to be my Unicorn is the title of a track thereupon.
This lovely scroll-saw carving of a heraldic unicorn was purchased at Worldcon last week. It's in bird's eye maple and is beautifully carved to bring out the characteristics of the wood. Cut as a jigsaw puzzle, it stands by itself and can be picked up whole and moved - luckily, as I'm pretty clumsy myself.
It's by Judy Peterson of Fantaminals. Their website (www.fantaminals.net) is currently a bit down, which is endearing but means you can't see their other examples. Judy's email address is here. (I have slightly munged that address to foil robot email harvesters, so if you wish to write, please make the obvious changes before actually sending your request.
The whole display at Worldcon was lovely and I would have swept up the lot of to take home with me if I could. I am thinking of buying him a Lion mail order so they can stand together like the wonderful beasts they are.
This lovely scroll-saw carving of a heraldic unicorn was purchased at Worldcon last week. It's in bird's eye maple and is beautifully carved to bring out the characteristics of the wood. Cut as a jigsaw puzzle, it stands by itself and can be picked up whole and moved - luckily, as I'm pretty clumsy myself.
It's by Judy Peterson of Fantaminals. Their website (www.fantaminals.net) is currently a bit down, which is endearing but means you can't see their other examples. Judy's email address is here. (I have slightly munged that address to foil robot email harvesters, so if you wish to write, please make the obvious changes before actually sending your request.
The whole display at Worldcon was lovely and I would have swept up the lot of to take home with me if I could. I am thinking of buying him a Lion mail order so they can stand together like the wonderful beasts they are.
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Tiller Road
Today's the 31st Anniversary of Elvis Presley's death. He died young, but if he'd lived, he would have been pretty old. That's how I think of it, anyway. He's always going to be younger than me now.
I remember where exactly what I was doing when I heard he'd died, on August 16th, 1977. That in itself is odd, because I'd never really thought much about him while he was alive. I was born just at the fulcrum, that cusp of pop change, 1958.
1958 is a good year to call the beginning of the modern era. Sputnik came back to Earth (it was launched in 1957). The first atom bomb was dropped on the US (friendly fire). Luckily it didn't go off. BBC's Radiophonic Workshop was established. The Notting Hill race riots occurred. (Watch Absolute Beginners for a picture of the new, post-rationing, post-austerity London and its riots.) Passenger jets flew across the Atlantic. Instant noodles were invented. Edmund Hillary reached the South Pole.
Anyone born in or after 1958 has never known a pre-army Elvis. To us, Elvis was never a snakehipped revolutionary godling. He was always the guy who made films too watery, too anodyne to even stick in the mind, the man who became Fat Elvis. By the time I knew what music was, the Beatles had arrived. I can remember hearing I Wanna Hold Your Hand for the first time and wanting more. The era of pre-music, the 2I's era, had ended.
But I do remember where I was when I heard Elvis had died. I was living in London at the time and one day there was a tremendous lightning storm. It was remarkable; London's pretty rainy at the best of times, but not like this. The sky was black and the rain was horizontal, flying along in sheets rather than rods. I got off the bus at the end of the street in this storm, and the amount of water hitting me actually choked me. I began to wonder how I'd bet back to the flat alive. The sign with the street name - a metal rectangle about four feet long and a foot wide - had blown off its concrete supports and was rocking in a puddle on the pavement. I picked it up and held it in front of my face to walk to the flat. It didn't help much but at least it kept enough water off my face that I could breathe. I got up the stairs and went inside. I was still holding the sign when my flatmate looked up at me. "Elvis is dead," he said. He was a year older than me.
I wish I'd kept the street sign.
I remember where exactly what I was doing when I heard he'd died, on August 16th, 1977. That in itself is odd, because I'd never really thought much about him while he was alive. I was born just at the fulcrum, that cusp of pop change, 1958.
1958 is a good year to call the beginning of the modern era. Sputnik came back to Earth (it was launched in 1957). The first atom bomb was dropped on the US (friendly fire). Luckily it didn't go off. BBC's Radiophonic Workshop was established. The Notting Hill race riots occurred. (Watch Absolute Beginners for a picture of the new, post-rationing, post-austerity London and its riots.) Passenger jets flew across the Atlantic. Instant noodles were invented. Edmund Hillary reached the South Pole.
Anyone born in or after 1958 has never known a pre-army Elvis. To us, Elvis was never a snakehipped revolutionary godling. He was always the guy who made films too watery, too anodyne to even stick in the mind, the man who became Fat Elvis. By the time I knew what music was, the Beatles had arrived. I can remember hearing I Wanna Hold Your Hand for the first time and wanting more. The era of pre-music, the 2I's era, had ended.
But I do remember where I was when I heard Elvis had died. I was living in London at the time and one day there was a tremendous lightning storm. It was remarkable; London's pretty rainy at the best of times, but not like this. The sky was black and the rain was horizontal, flying along in sheets rather than rods. I got off the bus at the end of the street in this storm, and the amount of water hitting me actually choked me. I began to wonder how I'd bet back to the flat alive. The sign with the street name - a metal rectangle about four feet long and a foot wide - had blown off its concrete supports and was rocking in a puddle on the pavement. I picked it up and held it in front of my face to walk to the flat. It didn't help much but at least it kept enough water off my face that I could breathe. I got up the stairs and went inside. I was still holding the sign when my flatmate looked up at me. "Elvis is dead," he said. He was a year older than me.
I wish I'd kept the street sign.
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