Who are the taleban ?
Afghans schools tries to make new start
Blair's last stand
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
Future ruins - Le futur détruira notre présent
Michelle Lord - Future ruins
Ballard often described the beckoning future of the modern metropolis in terms of the utopian ideology of Brutalist concrete architecture. Brutalism was an architectural movement originally associated with social idealism that is now criticised for disregarding the communal, h
istoric and surrounding built environment. Set against a backdrop of Birmingham’s few remaining concrete structures such as Spaghetti Junction, Central Library and New Street Station signal box, Future Ruins aims to highlight the temporality of our landscape, particularly at a time when Birmingham has embarked on a process of regeneration in order to redefine itself.
Derrida et l'hauntology
Hauntology revived
Along the way, Derrida coined the term "hauntology" as a pun on "ontology." Ontology is the study of being, of what exists. Derrida wants to say that our ideas of reality are "haunted" by the stuff we exclude—the things we don't want to remember or acknowledge. The Holocaust, for example, or the slave trade. Our sense of Western history as the progressive march of "freedom" and "civilization" is haunted by genocide and enslavement.
Along the way, Derrida coined the term "hauntology" as a pun on "ontology." Ontology is the study of being, of what exists. Derrida wants to say that our ideas of reality are "haunted" by the stuff we exclude—the things we don't want to remember or acknowledge. The Holocaust, for example, or the slave trade. Our sense of Western history as the progressive march of "freedom" and "civilization" is haunted by genocide and enslavement.
Un critique rock parle de la culture pop et de J.G. Ballard
"Magisterial, precise, unsettling" Simon Reynolds on the Ballard connection
I’ve long felt that pop music is driven by some pretty ambivalent, sometimes outright antisocial or malevolent energies. But I’ve probably derived that more from various French thinkers and Nietzsche, also from certain rock writers. And also just listening closely and honestly to my own responses to music. Still you could see that idea of music as fitting a Ballardian worldview to some degree. The idea of human culture as fundamentally perverse.
[...]
Well I think it was me who first broached the idea of ‘hauntology’ as a rubric for this loose network of contemporary bands who were playing with the cultural imagery of ghosts, spectres, the uncanny, the return of the cultural repressed, memory, and so forth, while also trying to make genuinely eerie music. But I didn’t particularly intend for there to be a tight correlation between Derrida’s concept of hauntology and what these bands were trying to do. It was just a convenient and cute term, ‘haunt’ referencing ghosts and ‘-ology’ suggesting the image of crackpot scientists working in the sound laboratory. There are certain affinities with Derrida’s ideas as elaborated in Spectres of Marx.
The word ‘hauntology’ has got a lot of traction, though, because it chimes in with things that are going on in modern art (the trend for work based around the concept of the archive and dealing with questions of collective memory) and in academia (with the boom of studies related to the spectral and uncanny, work on ruins, remains and rubbish, mourning and memory work, nostalgia for the future). Even just on the level of the word ghost or its homonyms popping up across popular culture in countless band names, album titles, novels and non-fiction books, et al - something is going on. With the ghostified bands specifically, I think what has grabbed some of us (apart from the music, which is fantastic) is that these are musicians who have tons of ideas both musical and non-musical. They tend to be very well read and thoughtful, real autodidacts with a passion for esoteric knowledge and bizarre historical arcana. They are making connections between music, film, books, TV, the occult, history, design… and their records also have a highly developed visual aesthetic.
I’ve long felt that pop music is driven by some pretty ambivalent, sometimes outright antisocial or malevolent energies. But I’ve probably derived that more from various French thinkers and Nietzsche, also from certain rock writers. And also just listening closely and honestly to my own responses to music. Still you could see that idea of music as fitting a Ballardian worldview to some degree. The idea of human culture as fundamentally perverse.
[...]
Well I think it was me who first broached the idea of ‘hauntology’ as a rubric for this loose network of contemporary bands who were playing with the cultural imagery of ghosts, spectres, the uncanny, the return of the cultural repressed, memory, and so forth, while also trying to make genuinely eerie music. But I didn’t particularly intend for there to be a tight correlation between Derrida’s concept of hauntology and what these bands were trying to do. It was just a convenient and cute term, ‘haunt’ referencing ghosts and ‘-ology’ suggesting the image of crackpot scientists working in the sound laboratory. There are certain affinities with Derrida’s ideas as elaborated in Spectres of Marx.
The word ‘hauntology’ has got a lot of traction, though, because it chimes in with things that are going on in modern art (the trend for work based around the concept of the archive and dealing with questions of collective memory) and in academia (with the boom of studies related to the spectral and uncanny, work on ruins, remains and rubbish, mourning and memory work, nostalgia for the future). Even just on the level of the word ghost or its homonyms popping up across popular culture in countless band names, album titles, novels and non-fiction books, et al - something is going on. With the ghostified bands specifically, I think what has grabbed some of us (apart from the music, which is fantastic) is that these are musicians who have tons of ideas both musical and non-musical. They tend to be very well read and thoughtful, real autodidacts with a passion for esoteric knowledge and bizarre historical arcana. They are making connections between music, film, books, TV, the occult, history, design… and their records also have a highly developed visual aesthetic.
Literay criticism - Wikipedia
Literary criticism
Literary criticism is the study, discussion, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals. Though the two activities are closely related, literary critics are not always, and have not always been, theorists.
Literary criticism is the study, discussion, evaluation, and interpretation of literature. Modern literary criticism is often informed by literary theory, which is the philosophical discussion of its methods and goals. Though the two activities are closely related, literary critics are not always, and have not always been, theorists.
Bruce Sterling (auteur de science fiction) - Wikipedia
Bruce Sterling
Mirrorshades anthology : Receuil de nouvelles d'auteur de Cyberpunk. Receuil à l'origine de la définition du genre. A lire en VO, la VF est chiante a mourir.
Shaper/Mecanist : From the late 1970s onwards, Sterling wrote a series of stories set in the Shaper/Mechanist universe: the solar system is colonised, with two major warring factions. The Mechanists use a great deal of computer-based mechanical technologies; the Shapers do genetic engineering on a massive scale. The situation is complicated by the eventual contact with alien civilizations; humanity eventually splits into many subspecies, with the implication that many of these effectively vanish from the galaxy, reminiscent of The Singularity in the works of Vernor Vinge.
[...]
He has been the instigator of two projects which can be found on the Web -
Mirrorshades anthology : Receuil de nouvelles d'auteur de Cyberpunk. Receuil à l'origine de la définition du genre. A lire en VO, la VF est chiante a mourir.
Shaper/Mecanist : From the late 1970s onwards, Sterling wrote a series of stories set in the Shaper/Mechanist universe: the solar system is colonised, with two major warring factions. The Mechanists use a great deal of computer-based mechanical technologies; the Shapers do genetic engineering on a massive scale. The situation is complicated by the eventual contact with alien civilizations; humanity eventually splits into many subspecies, with the implication that many of these effectively vanish from the galaxy, reminiscent of The Singularity in the works of Vernor Vinge.
[...]
He has been the instigator of two projects which can be found on the Web -
- The Dead Media Project - A collection of "research notes" on dead media technologies, from Incan quipus, through Victorian phenakistoscopes, to the departed video game and home computers of the 1980s. The Project's homepage, including Sterling's original Dead Media Manifesto can be found at http://www.deadmedia.org
- The Viridian Design Movement - his attempt to create a "green" design movement focused on high-tech, stylish, and ecologically sound design.[1] The Viridian Design home page, including Sterling's Viridian Manifesto and all of his Viridian Notes, is managed by Jon Lebkowsky at http://www.viridiandesign.org. The Viridian Movement helped to spawn the popular "bright green" environmental weblog Worldchanging. WorldChanging contributors include many of the original members of the Viridian "curia".
J.G. Ballard (auteur de science fiction) - Wikipedia
Jg Ballard
Auteur de Crash
The adjective "Ballardian", defined as "resembling or suggestive of the conditions described in JG Ballard's novels and stories, especially dystopian modernity, bleak man-made landscapes and the psychological effects of technological, social or environmental developments", has been included in the Collins English Dictionary. [1]
Auteur de Crash
The adjective "Ballardian", defined as "resembling or suggestive of the conditions described in JG Ballard's novels and stories, especially dystopian modernity, bleak man-made landscapes and the psychological effects of technological, social or environmental developments", has been included in the Collins English Dictionary. [1]
Monday, June 18, 2007
Friday, June 15, 2007
Dopplr - La carte de vos amis
Dopplr
Un système qui n'en est encore qu'a sa version beta mais qui permet de créer une carte avec les noms des personnes. Très utile pour des personnes voyageant souvent et rencontrant beaucoup de monde puisque cela permet de clarifier en quelques clics les allées et venus de ses contacts.
Un système qui n'en est encore qu'a sa version beta mais qui permet de créer une carte avec les noms des personnes. Très utile pour des personnes voyageant souvent et rencontrant beaucoup de monde puisque cela permet de clarifier en quelques clics les allées et venus de ses contacts.
Des transferts de données a travers les os
Bones could allow data swaps through handshakes
YOUR backbone's connected to your shoulder bone, your shoulder bone's connected to your neck bone - and your neck bone's connected to your cellphone.
They then measured how well bone conducted these signals when they were generated in places on the body where devices are normally worn: the wrist for watches, the lower back for cellphones worn on a belt, and behind the ear for headsets. They found the skeleton conducted even low-power vibrations from one location to another with surprisingly few errors. "This is quite amazing because all the links involved multiple bones and many joints," Zhong told a conference on body networks in Florence, Italy, this week.
YOUR backbone's connected to your shoulder bone, your shoulder bone's connected to your neck bone - and your neck bone's connected to your cellphone.
Something along these lines is what Lin Zhong and Michael Liebschner at Rice University in Houston, Texas, envisage. They want to use the human skeleton to transmit commands reliably and securely to wearable gadgets and medical implants. Their research, funded by Microsoft and Texas Instruments, could also lead to new ways for people with disabilities to control devices such as computers and PDAs.
[...]They then measured how well bone conducted these signals when they were generated in places on the body where devices are normally worn: the wrist for watches, the lower back for cellphones worn on a belt, and behind the ear for headsets. They found the skeleton conducted even low-power vibrations from one location to another with surprisingly few errors. "This is quite amazing because all the links involved multiple bones and many joints," Zhong told a conference on body networks in Florence, Italy, this week.
The researchers suggest applications such as a vibrator in a wrist receiver/transmitter that could tell an implant placed near a bone to release a drug dose, with the implant then sending back data from its sensors. Similarly, tooth clacks or finger clicks could be interpreted by a receiver to activate, say, functions in a phone.
For Liebschner, the great benefit is security. "All data transfer is contained inside the human body, and it can only be retrieved through direct physical contact," he says. People could even swap information between devices via a firm handshake, Zhong suggests.
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Relapse - Cocaine
Relapse - Mr Budd on the effect of cocaine
Energy rush + euphoric feeling + shamelessness + weight loss + being really stupid and shallow + willingness to suck cock for another bag.
Energy rush + euphoric feeling + shamelessness + weight loss + being really stupid and shallow + willingness to suck cock for another bag.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Une election de miss univers troublé
Japan wins troubled Miss Universe contest
In another hitch, Miss Mexico was made to change her outfit for the regional dress contest after her original dress, decorated with brutal images of rebels in a 1920s religious uprising being hanged or shot, drew accusations of poor taste….
In another hitch, Miss Mexico was made to change her outfit for the regional dress contest after her original dress, decorated with brutal images of rebels in a 1920s religious uprising being hanged or shot, drew accusations of poor taste….
This year, [the pageant] attracted protesters wearing white dresses splashed with fake blood and sashes proclaiming “Miss Juarez,” “Miss Atenco” and “Miss Michoacan” in reference to places in Mexico made infamous by killings or sexual abuse of women.
In another quirk for 2007, the long, twisted dreadlocks of Miss Jamaica, the contest’s first ever Rastafarian participant, and the close-shaved head of Miss Tanzania stood out from the lacquered manes of the other contestants.
Friday, May 25, 2007
Un accro des chats porno serait en fait dépendant
Us sex addict sues over firing
James Pacenza, 58, says he was addicted to online chat rooms and that IBM should have offered him sympathy and treatment instead of firing him.
[...]
The stated reason was that he visited an internet chat site for a sexual experience after he had previously been warned.
James Pacenza, 58, says he was addicted to online chat rooms and that IBM should have offered him sympathy and treatment instead of firing him.
The Vietnam War veteran says he has suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder since 1969.
He argues that he used the internet to control his psychological problems.[...]
The stated reason was that he visited an internet chat site for a sexual experience after he had previously been warned.
James Pacenza's lawyers will argue in court that their client was using the internet to self-medicate as a way of controlling his post traumatic stress disorder.
They will also argue that Mr Pacenza's claimed addiction to adult internet sites should be treated in the same way as other employees' addictions to drugs or alcohol.
The case, which has been postponed until 29 June, has potential implications for employers across America and their attitude towards regulating how employees use workplace computers.
(Non seulement ce serait un changement au niveau de la régulation de ce que peux et ne peux pas faire un employé sur son lieu de travail mais en plus cela voudrait dire que des avocats "aideraient" des psychologues a définir une addiction a Internet.)Thursday, May 24, 2007
Quelques références biographiques autour de Freakonomics - Wikipedia
Gary Becker - Idole de Steven Levitt (Freakonomics). Economiste a l'origine de travaux sur la vie en société et le crime, entre autre.
Steven Levitt - Auteur de Freakonomics, théoricien de la vie quotidienne comme les matchs de sumo trafiqués ou le commerce du crack.
Robert Rosenthal - Psychologue auteur de la théorie de l'effet pygmalion (les attentes des professeurs par rapport a une copie d'un élève).
Steven Levitt - Auteur de Freakonomics, théoricien de la vie quotidienne comme les matchs de sumo trafiqués ou le commerce du crack.
Robert Rosenthal - Psychologue auteur de la théorie de l'effet pygmalion (les attentes des professeurs par rapport a une copie d'un élève).
Gravity's Rainbow - Wikipedia
Gravity's Rainbow de Thomas Pynchon sur Wikipedia
Gravity's Rainbow is an epic postmodern novel written by Thomas Pynchon and first published on February 28, 1973.
Gravity's Rainbow is an epic postmodern novel written by Thomas Pynchon and first published on February 28, 1973.
The narrative is set primarily in Europe at the end of World War II and centers on the design, production and dispatch of V-2 rockets by the German military, and, in particular, the quest undertaken by several of the characters to uncover the secret of a mysterious device named the "Schwarzgerät", which will be installed in a rocket with the serial number "00000."
Frequently digressive, the novel subverts many of the traditional elements of plot and character development, traverses detailed, specialist knowledge drawn from a wide range of disciplines, and has earned a reputation as a "difficult" book.
In 1974, the three-member Pulitzer Prize jury on fiction supported Gravity's Rainbow for the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. However, the other eleven members of the board overturned this decision, branding the book "unreadable, turgid, overwritten, and obscene." The novel was nominated for the 1973 Nebula Award for Best Novel, and won the National Book Award in 1974. Since its publication, Gravity's Rainbow has spawned an enormous amount of literary criticism and commentary, including two reader's guides and several online concordances, and is widely regarded as Pynchon's magnum opus.
Nagi Noda - La publicité mène a tout
Monday, May 21, 2007
Le journalisme musical et les chroniqueurs de comics
Warren Ellis - On magazines about comics
Now, obviously, I'm an old guy. My notion of what makes a good comics magazine comes from the 80s, pre-net. In fact, I worked on a comics magazine back then, Speakeasy, which was very informed and influenced by music papers. It was a monthly, and we didn't have a huge problem getting stuff reviewed within a month of its release. Obviously, we weren't affecting things within the week of their new-release cycle. But, hell, even the music paper came out every two weeks. It was a slower time. That said, you could still find the comics being reviewed, as indeed you could now.
Music papers were the grail of arts writing, back then. There was a period in the 80s where the best cultural writing anywhere was being done in the music inkies. And the majority of this was happening in the reviews sections. These weren't enthusiastic amateurs who thought that ten years of reading superhero comics (or skimming them behind a desk) qualified them. These were people who were hired (very important) because they lived and breathed and understood music and who could write and communicate brilliantly.
And what they did was write with passion and in an informed manner. These were people who knew what they were talking about, and who could contextualise what they were feeling about the work at hand, be it excitement or disappointment.
Now, obviously, I'm an old guy. My notion of what makes a good comics magazine comes from the 80s, pre-net. In fact, I worked on a comics magazine back then, Speakeasy, which was very informed and influenced by music papers. It was a monthly, and we didn't have a huge problem getting stuff reviewed within a month of its release. Obviously, we weren't affecting things within the week of their new-release cycle. But, hell, even the music paper came out every two weeks. It was a slower time. That said, you could still find the comics being reviewed, as indeed you could now.
Music papers were the grail of arts writing, back then. There was a period in the 80s where the best cultural writing anywhere was being done in the music inkies. And the majority of this was happening in the reviews sections. These weren't enthusiastic amateurs who thought that ten years of reading superhero comics (or skimming them behind a desk) qualified them. These were people who were hired (very important) because they lived and breathed and understood music and who could write and communicate brilliantly.
And what they did was write with passion and in an informed manner. These were people who knew what they were talking about, and who could contextualise what they were feeling about the work at hand, be it excitement or disappointment.
Des faits sur les agressions sexuelles sur des adolescents sur internet
Just the fact about online youth victimization
Un ensemble de 9 videos sur une conférence où quatre intervenants spécialistes des agressions sexuelles et des relations entre adolescents sur le réseau internet parlent de ce qu'ils connaissent et démontent les mythes autour des abus sexuels sur Internet. Les 4 premières vidéos laissent la parole, chacun a leur tour, aux intervenants avant de passer aux question du public. Je n'ai vu que ces quatres la et je recommande leur visionnage car elle renseigne efficacement et les intervenants sont comprehensible et sympathique.
En résumé, il se dégage plusieurs points essentiels :
Les adolescents ne proposent pas tous un profil sur Internet
Ils ne proposent pas non plus souvent des informations personnels sur leur profil et choisissent même de ne donner que des fausses informations ou très peu.
La plupart des victimes de prédateur adulte sont faites sur des adolescents et pas des enfants. De plus, la majorité de ces agressions sont comis par des adultes qui révèlent leur age véritable a leurs enfants et ont une relation suivit avec eux. Les spécialistes parlent même alors d'une sorte de relation amoureuse entre l'adulte et l'enfant (ce qui peut rappeler en partie le livre Lolita de Nabokov).
Le réseau internet sert d'amplificateur a des conflits ou a des relations qui existent déjà dans la vie réel. Les adolescents ne se servent pas spécialement de leur profil pour rencontrer de nouvelles personnes qui ne font pas partie de leur réseau direct d'ami mais pour se faire connître de personnes qu'ils fréquentent déjà dans la vie réelle.
Un ensemble de 9 videos sur une conférence où quatre intervenants spécialistes des agressions sexuelles et des relations entre adolescents sur le réseau internet parlent de ce qu'ils connaissent et démontent les mythes autour des abus sexuels sur Internet. Les 4 premières vidéos laissent la parole, chacun a leur tour, aux intervenants avant de passer aux question du public. Je n'ai vu que ces quatres la et je recommande leur visionnage car elle renseigne efficacement et les intervenants sont comprehensible et sympathique.
En résumé, il se dégage plusieurs points essentiels :
Les adolescents ne proposent pas tous un profil sur Internet
Ils ne proposent pas non plus souvent des informations personnels sur leur profil et choisissent même de ne donner que des fausses informations ou très peu.
La plupart des victimes de prédateur adulte sont faites sur des adolescents et pas des enfants. De plus, la majorité de ces agressions sont comis par des adultes qui révèlent leur age véritable a leurs enfants et ont une relation suivit avec eux. Les spécialistes parlent même alors d'une sorte de relation amoureuse entre l'adulte et l'enfant (ce qui peut rappeler en partie le livre Lolita de Nabokov).
Le réseau internet sert d'amplificateur a des conflits ou a des relations qui existent déjà dans la vie réel. Les adolescents ne se servent pas spécialement de leur profil pour rencontrer de nouvelles personnes qui ne font pas partie de leur réseau direct d'ami mais pour se faire connître de personnes qu'ils fréquentent déjà dans la vie réelle.
Tuesday, May 15, 2007
Un nouvelle drogue dans la région de Dallas - Le Cheese
Stopping a kid killer
Cheese is made by grinding up cold medication and mixing it with black-tar heroin, which is typically smuggled in by Mexican drug cartels. A $30 purchase of heroin can yield 40 to 50 cheese hits, each costing about $2—more affordable for users and more profitable for mixers. The drug, which is snorted, derives its name from a supposedly Parmesan-like appearance, though in reality, it looks more like coarse sand. Because the amount of heroin in cheese is sometimes small—as little as 3 percent—the drug rarely shows up in field tests. But the heroin quantity can be inconsistent. "Kids will be scoring 3 percent and all of a sudden, they get 9 or 10 percent, and you are dead," says James Capra, Special Agent in charge of the DEA's Dallas field division.
Cheese is made by grinding up cold medication and mixing it with black-tar heroin, which is typically smuggled in by Mexican drug cartels. A $30 purchase of heroin can yield 40 to 50 cheese hits, each costing about $2—more affordable for users and more profitable for mixers. The drug, which is snorted, derives its name from a supposedly Parmesan-like appearance, though in reality, it looks more like coarse sand. Because the amount of heroin in cheese is sometimes small—as little as 3 percent—the drug rarely shows up in field tests. But the heroin quantity can be inconsistent. "Kids will be scoring 3 percent and all of a sudden, they get 9 or 10 percent, and you are dead," says James Capra, Special Agent in charge of the DEA's Dallas field division.
One of the most disturbing aspects of the cheese phenomenon is the users' age. Dallas police have arrested kids as young as 12—and in one case, the Dallas school district nabbed an 11-year-old. In fact, dealers use the drug's inoffensive moniker to market it to youth, says Capra. "Put yourself in that kid's mind," he says. " 'It's got a funny name, and it's only a couple of bucks'." The users' youth also complicates treatment. "Cognitively, they don't understand consequences," says Michelle Hemm, director of the Phoenix Academy of Dallas, a residential treatment facility for teens that's seeing a growing number of cheese cases. "This age group is developmentally hard to deal with."
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