Allport Authority

god damn indignations

21 01 2010

One of the on-going reads recently has been Transmetropolitan – a Comic Book. Written by Warren Ellis, it chronicles

an acerbic gonzo journalist in a dystopian future America, co-created with artist Darick Robertson and published by DC’s Helix imprint. When Helix was discontinued the following year, Transmetropolitan was shifted to the Vertigo imprint, and remained one of the most successful non-superhero comics DC was then publishing. Transmetropolitan ran for 60 issues (plus a few specials), ending in 2002, and the entire run was later collected in a series of trade paperbacks. It remains Ellis’ largest work to date.

I cannot determine an easy way to put a citation on the above quoted section. Shall I draw your attention to it? I already have. I will point you to this. You may continue.

My concern lies with questions of intellectual property theft. It is not so much a problem for me personally although I often consider the subject. It does, however, concern those whom I read. The general stance that they’ve taken seems to indicate that creativity ought not to be stifled by refusing to give credit when its due. At the same time we must disallow a patent and copyright system that promotes lawsuits concerning intellectual property theft rather than actual innovation. They have also described how the New York Times is erecting a pay wall that will limit the number of visits permitted for nonsubscribers (read it now, you will have to pay for that privilege starting January of 2011). News Corp is sealing itself off from the rest of the internet all together. Recent policy decisions by the legislatures and heads of state in Britain, France, China, and Italy (among many, many others) have also shown that they don’t have two shits of a clue as to what the shit is going on in the Cloud.

Let’s not fiddlefuck around. This is why I’m outraged. There is a wealth of information that ought to be available to every person that lives on this earth. Information in such quantities that everyone worthwhile individual that chooses to make abundant use of it can make any number of significant differences in their conduct as an individual and as a member of a society, a civilization, and a species.

THIS SHIT IS IMPORTANT. And it should not cost people money. Giving more information to more people makes all people better. And they need to know how to organize it to filter the bullshit. Please stop erecting barriers to human welfare. Fuck suing people for tens of thousands of dollars for sharing music on the internet. Fuck arguing back and forth about which politicans ought to be admired for appearing to be the one to make the hard decision and the crucial compromise. Fuck that. Fuck those people. Pull the trigger. Get things in motion. Is there something good that you can do for someone? Do it. Is there a way that you can avoid screwing someone over and still accomplish what you need to? Avoid it. Hold the god damn door. Give credit where it is due. Seed your torrents until you obtain an appropriate ratio. Acknowledge the other’s right to disagree. Hammer the point when the truth matters. Feed people. Do not allow your politicians to compromise themselves before ruthless corporate interests that are bent on taking your country’s money and spending it on themselves. They are hurting you. They are hurting me. They are hurting our country. Everywhere. The debate can’t just be about healthcare proposals and gay marriage. We don’t have the time. We don’t have the money. This shit is real and we have to fix it as soon as possible. Don’t let your apathy and ignorance be the reason why you fail to thrive in the future. We have to help educate each other. We have to consider the facts and agree on a solution. And then we all have to make sure it works. And then we have to keep it working. Sitting around watching people tell you how they’re wasting your money while the world grows up around them. Don’t be obsolete.

Are you not also enraged by this crock of shit? Teddy Roosevelt would kick your ass.

I’m also reading books by Albert Camus, Philip K. Dick, and Fyodor Dostoevsky. I sense a goddamn pattern to my intellectual process and I intent to follow it wherever the fuck it goes. Does anyone have any idea what I should do about it? I’m entertaining all reccommendations that don’t require me to supplant myself for the sake of shortsighted ideals.

I’m also considering a webcomic comprising pictures that I’m going to take randomly throughout the day. This is my personal compromise with that photographic novel I also want to do. lol teehee ^_^

For the record, the home page headline over at NYTimes.com right now is about a guy who runs a soul food restaurant in Chicago. I hope I never have to pay to hear about what someone does for work. Unless it’s by Warren Ellis. Hey hey!

———————————————————————–

THERE ARE A BUNCH OF THINGS THAT I FORGOT TO SAY! This turned into a mostly rant. I’m hoping to take the time to walk through all of the ideas hinted at in the above section. I have a bunch of interesting reading to bust up, and I would like to believe that I will become more acquainted with my thoughts as I lay down the hurt on these books.

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Tags: Google, human fucking decency, information, intellectual property, New York Times, teddy roosevelt, Warren Ellis
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asdfasdfasdf

14 01 2010

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dude, why are you reading this? all of the real stuff is happening on twitters

http://twitter.com/chigmata

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Tags: how do you keep a dumbass busy
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Borne by gunslingers

25 11 2009

Not usually one to bring up Stephen King outside of mentioning that he’s actively working on a musical with John Mellencamp, I happened across a copy of his graphic novel “The Dark Tower: Gunslinger Born.” Now, I didn’t find this exact title, but I managed to extract it from a very long conversation with a professional graphic novel salesman. I presume that he was attempting to bounce as many titles off of me as possible to figure out what I wanted to read and not that he expected me to purchase every book he offered. It isn’t that I didn’t recognize the authority of his suggestion, I simply wanted to constrict the size of the fistful of dollars I could have potentially spent in that store.

I had intended to drop in and pickup two of the books I had ordered (for anyone that clicks on that second link, I swear that my copy does not have anything about Blade Runner on the cover) and then leave. Having been inside once before to set up ordering my pulls, I had noticed that they maintained a complete selection of Neil Gaiman’s Sandman and Alan Moore’s Swamp Thing. I was pretty excited about that. Tony had repped them pretty hard last Spring and I had started reading them. I stopped reading Sandman because I had been waiting to borrow the next trade and had started reading something else instead. Swamp Thing I had to give back to him because I was too worried about bending the cover. In each case, I had gotten just far enough to become seriously engaged by the story. I had gotten roughly 22 issues into Sandman, so that wasn’t too hard to take since I already had several story arcs notched, but I had only gotten 3 or 4 issues into Swamp Thing. Halting that readthrough was jarring.

I ended up by additionally buying the first Swamp Thing trade and Stephen King’s Gunslinger Born. I’m almost finished with it. It’s really good. Shane read it and was thusly inspired to make repeated visits to the Curious Book Shop to get books 1, 2, and 3 from the Dark Tower series. It follows a vein of post-apocalyptic survival stories that is able to blend the immediately necessities of perpetually high doses of radiation (and other survivally things) with a mystical worship of force and pseudo-naturalist behaviors. I’ve been encountering this kind of display in The Walking Dead, Fallout 3, World War Z (which I recommend to everyone, it was very fun), Left 4 Dead, Gene Wolfe’s The Book of the New Sun, and a healthy dose of Isaac Asimov. These were all read or played fairly recently. And they are not the only ones – I’ve forgotten many. Even my looming Dungeons & Dragons campaign is going to be set in the Dark Sun setting astride a land comprised almost entirely of desert as the sun feeds corrupted magics with the blood and the tears of those who would live there.

Suffice to say, I’ve been thinking about the end of the world. I’m hoping to tell you about what I’ve come up with. I have a plan to do so.

I intend to construct a graphic novel sans illustrations. In their place will be an arrangement of photographs with comic lettering. It will be a photographic novel. I’m hoping that it will kick ass. I also think that it functions to combine all of my areas of interest into one tidy project. I’m going to be writing regular updates on how the project as a whole is progressing, and I’ll probably be consulting any potential readers of those posts to contibute feedback on nuanced story material – although I’m hoping to avoid having to do that second part too often so as to avoid disclosing too many integral plot details. I will no doubt disguise them, as though they were ninjas looming in dangerous proximity to you – lashing out with a practiced strike aiming to end your life as if this blog post were naught but a distraction designed as they closed in to cut your throat as you finish this sentence!

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Tags: Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, ninjas, philip k. dick, photographic novel, Robert Kirkman, stephen king
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On the horizon

29 10 2009

A lot of interesting shit has been going down recently. I’ve had the opportunity to think long and hard about how I ought arrange personal priorities proportionally for someone who is 23. I know what a lot of other people are doing. I’m finally closing in on deciding what I’m going to do. Sorry for not having any details right now.

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Tags: proportionality, the future
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dethcommentary II

22 10 2009

I’ve been trying to figure out what was nagging me at the show last night. My last post was a desperate attempt to explain how I felt about the show. It ended up being a mindless narrative chronicling the standard events that always accompany a concert. I attempted to reason through what other possibilities could be. I claimed that I didn’t think that the audience was intense enough. I also lamented how I didn’t like the idea that the cartoon footage on the screen eliminated any possibility for variation in the music. It was pointed out to me that it would be impossible for musical variation due to the incredible amount of complexity in the music which, by categorical definition, must be present in that style of metal. I’ve been to other metal shows and greatly enjoyed them. This clearly was not a viable explanation.

What it probably came down to is that I was excessively rehearsed for the show. The Dethalbum found its way into my cd player last November. It stayed there until a few weeks ago when I came into possession of The Dethalbum II. There is a large amount of time in between those two dates. I was therefore able to become quite familiar with each note from the first album. My disappointment was simply that they didn’t play for longer and that I didn’t get thrown around by the crowd the entire time in order to reflect the overall brutality associated with the cartoon band.

These were ludicrous and sensational expectations. I had no actual belief that they would play all of the songs that I wanted to hear. I was disappointed with a few of the selections that I felt were below par for a band of their skill. I refer specifically to Birthday Dethday and Dethsupport. I would have been much more satisfied had they played Castratikon and Go Forth and Die (best idea for an encore ever). It isn’t that I didn’t enjoy enjoy listening to the songs that they did play. I like listening to Dethklok. It really makes little difference what they play. I like just listening to the voice from my favorite cartoon singing awesome shit. I just knew that they would have a sorter than preferable set because of how long Mastodon was entitled to play. They were co-headliners after all. And Mastodon puts on a hell of a show.

Fuck, I know what it was that I didn’t like about it. It had nothing to do with Mastodon or Dethklok. Both were stellar performances. I could have asked for little more. Rather, it was the god damn openers. I can’t believe that with two great headlining bands they would have two openers and give them 40 minute sets. Converge was one of the worst acts I’ve ever seen. The sound quality of Jacob Bannon’s mic made it impossible to even guess what he was screaming except during the title track of Axe to Fall. He ran out of stage antics almost immediately and just kind of scampered around on stage throwing up his arms at “pivotal” moments in the music and just generally pissing me off. When he announced that they had four more songs to play there was an audible break in the crowd’s mood as most of the energy shifted from reasonable tolerance to outright displeasure. I was not the only one audibly voicing their disapproval of the stage manager’s schedule for the evening. By the time Mastodon arrived I was so thoroughly pissed off that I couldn’t enjoy their performance. By the time Dethklok came on I had been forced to stand through several hours of shitty music after having driven from Lansing to Detroit on a day where I had been up since 7 that morning for class knowing all the while that I wasn’t going to get home until 12:30 and then have to be up for class the following morning.

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Tags: Converge, Dethklok, Mastodon, Metalocalypse
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dethcommentary

22 10 2009

Yesterday evening Shane and I drove to Detroit to see Dethklok in concert. The drive itself was uneventful. We were both fairly relaxed. Shane claimed to be tired. I had taken a nap after getting home from class. I was therefore fairly well rested; I often catch myself yawning at concerts despite how wide-awake I ought to be. I had intentionally made sure that I wouldn’t be nodding off during the show. Needless to say, being calm and reflective is not traditionally included in the arsenal of metal concertgoers. Fortunately, Detroit stepped up to free us from those restrictions.

Going to a large concert means preparing yourself to bleed cash. Twelve bucks for parking wasn’t bad. I had been expecting twenty. And we got to park right across the street from the theater. We don’t have to wait outside for more than three minutes. Frisked at the door, in we go. Oh shit, there’s the merch. I had planned to buy a t-shirt. I don’t usually purchase a lot of clothing. I have, however, made a point of grabbing a shirt if it’s a band that I’m proud to have seen. Daft Punk, Pearl Jam, and Tool are three examples. I’ve listened to Dethklok almost exclusively for almost a year. I think it qualifies for a t-shirt purchase. Oh wait, they only have smalls and extra larges left. I am forced once again to contemplate why concert venues are never able to anticipate how fat or not fat their customers are going to be. I have no answers. I also have no t-shirt.

We wade into the general admission area. There’s the floor area against the stage, a raised level with some chairs and tables, and a bar. Shane notes that the price for a 24oz beer is the same as a long island. This should be a no-brainer. He gets two long islands – one for himself and one for me in lieu of payment for gas. Turns out that long islands are served in a 12oz cup. Kind of a brutal turn of events. Feeling somewhat ripped off, we return to the floor.

The opening bands fucking blew. I have no idea what the first one sounded like, but I consider myself lucky if the second band was supposed to be better than the first. I’ve since learned that the second band was Converge. Their new album is called “Axe to Fall.” I was told beforehand that they were worth being excited about. I’m glad that I chose to disagree at the time. I renew my disgust. These guys played for way too long. Then they announced that they were going to be playing four more songs. My impressive string of profanity was matched only by the majority of people around me. It was at that point that I decided I needed a nine-dollar beer.

I used the Mastodon set to move closer to the stage. I was pretty sure that it was Mastodon because they didn’t announce themselves before they started playing. They also had some kind of video playing on the large screen behind them. It involved a wizard or something who appeared to work with Russians – or at least men with large beards and military uniforms. Dunno. Some douchebag was headbanging and kept bumping into us from behind. Mastodon was pretty cool, but they were not who I had come to see.

Dethklok came on stage following Mastodon. They had a series of cartoons that played between songs. The character voices seemed really high-pitched. The music was great. The lighting was of little consequence. The moshing was tolerable. Brendon Small spoke to us as each of his different characters from the show. I’ve always enjoyed the idea that someone who writes a great tv show can also play guitar and sing really well. I was not disappointed. Shane almost got knocked over by the moshers and lost the cigarettes in the shuffle. That sucked.

It was not inappropriate for our moods to have fouled by a continued series of bad shit happening. The money we had to spend, not being allowed to use specific bathrooms, no shirts, douchebags crashing into shit, shitty openers, having to drive to Detroit during rush hour, etc. all combined to make a good show even more brutal.

Season 3 starts on November 8th. Half hour episodes. Going to kick major ass.

Comments : 4 Comments »
Tags: Converge, Dethklok, Detroit, Fillmore, Mastodon, metal, Metalocalypse
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spreadsheets rhyme with clusterfuck

20 10 2009

As any frequent observer/participant of/in Krazy Katz discussions can tell you, the development of systems is an incredibly complex topic with several avenues of approach toward satisfying various requisite conditions. I refer you here and here for examples of workplace spillover. I have yet to read the GEB tome that Shane describes so I’ll leave the specific explanations of the different premises for him to cover in due time. Suffice to say, one of the devices used to clarify his statements is an artificial programming language. His purpose is to demonstrate some sort of universality and what I can only assume to be the benefit of an organized problem-solving mechanism. Shane was reading this section of the book and was thusly motivated to engage me in conversation.

It is not relevant to this post for you to understand what this book is about. Focus rather on the mere existence of “computers.” Are you aware of them? Good. Let’s move forward.

Shane asked if I’ve used Google Spreadsheets. I reply by pointing out that I’ve certainly made use of Google Docs, but never for any purpose greater than backing up my documents. I am, at the point, directed to open a blank spreadsheet. I am then told that Google Docs makes use of parsing systems to integrate statistical information into cells. His suggestion is to insert the population of New York City into the sheet. After some confusion over formatting and a decision which I made to switch from “New York City” to simply “Michigan.” This gives us the formula =GoogleLookup(“Michigan”, “population”). Pretty cool, right?

Wrong.

Google locates the statistical information for the cells by using its capacity as a very large search engine to root out authoritative sources that are capable of supplying reliable information. “Population” as a search term seems like it would be pretty easy to find. Google chose to use http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michigan. This should have been a highly appropriate outlet for information. We were then told that the “population” of “Michigan” is 114,662.

No.

The population of Michigan is over 10 million. I learn this by skimming the article and arriving at the state summary section. Population? 10 million. The 114,662 number was taken from the list of the ten most populated cities in the state. It’s Flint. Is the population of Flint identical to that of the entire state? It is not.

Congratulations Google. I can no longer in good faith make use of the GoogleLookup function and feel assured that it is working correctly. I have no way of knowing whether I can rely on your supplied statistics. Will this doubt spill over into other programs which I have used regularly? Maybe. Unless you give me an invite to Google Wave!

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Tags: fuctions, Google, Google Docs, michigan, population, spreadsheets, systems
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technical failure audio

19 10 2009

A request was recently submitted to have Technical Failure presented in a listenable format. I have done precisely that. While I was recording, I noticed that there was a word selection made in the third paragraph that I didn’t necessarily agree with. I attempted an on-the-stop substitution. I clearly didn’t give it much thought as I was doing it – the word I selected was even less appropriate to the sentence than the original. It is likely that the sentence “At first I was able to do this anyway (now read as “regardless” rather than “anyway”)” needed a complete overall rather than a minor correction. Mistakes have been made.

Here is the file http://www.filefront.com/14755059/technical%20failure.mp3

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technical failure

15 10 2009

All right, so I finally was able to conjure up the determination required to order a new power cord for my laptop. I’ve been without regular access to the internet for several weeks now. One of the problems that has plagued most users of the Macbook Air (as far as I can tell) is a flimsy connection joint on the power cord. Coming off of the adapter is the standard electrical cable – fitted with an external hardened rubber sleeve. And seeing that one of the prime features of a laptop is its overall portability, it could reasonably be suspected that the power cord would have to sustain travel damage.

My friends, the Macbook Air’s 45W power adapter is flimsy at best.

The nature of preparing a power cord for travel is such that it requires the excess cable to be coiled or to be wrapped around the adapter. Indeed, there are retractable hooks made for precisely this purpose. The problem that arises is that the cable becomes pinched against the aforementioned rubber sleeve. This continued compression slowly rubs a hole in the insulation until it reaches a point where the wires themselves become exposed. Once the wires begin to wear thin from the continued pinching, they proceed to slowly sever themselves. I was able to get around this problem for some time by pinching the wires together even more excessively so as to prolong contact. At first I was able to do this anyway. After about a week and a half it was necessary to place it against a rigid surface that would allow the adapter to be wedged against it. This practice was, of course, not sustainable.

Behold, I have made my return to the ‘net.

I’ve had many questions recently that have for the most part gone unanswered. Several of them do not deserve response at all and some would have answers that would make me uncomfortable. I’m hoping to better figure out what it is I’m trying to understand so that I can better tailor my approach. Are you confused? I certainly am. My overall mood is very similar to the one reflected in yesterday’s post at Outwardly Foolish. No doubt they are reflections of each other. I guess that’s what happens when people live and work with the same people.

I haven’t been able to drum up the motivation to finish reading Crime and Punishment. It’s a shame really, because I had made significant progress through it. I just haven’t been able to recreate the reading environment that I found at the truck stop in Bridgeport. I’m going to need to get over it quickly before too much more of the semester goes by. I’ve been able to do my assigned reading for the most part. It has, unfortunately, been quite tedious. I’m not convinced that I’m learning anything right now. This is rather frustrating since, up until a few months ago, I still felt as if I were learning something new each day. I suppose I did have to devote a fair amount of energy and focus toward familiarizing myself with the shop environment and all of the information that goes along with that. I still want to finish this book though. This is the second time I’ve tried to read through it. I’d rather not have to attempt a third.

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Tags: Dostoevsky, macbook air
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