Moneydick

These link posts are another way for me to keep track of what I read and love, but also to share with you.

To listen to

Fan of Hunter S. Thompson? Here’s a recording (75 minutes 165mb .zip) of a Sep/13/1977 visit to UC (University of Colorado)

Loink loink uberhaus

For a trip to ‘let’s become aware of our bodies’ public-art awareness land, see the politics of puking @ Oberlin College, or in the ‘too close for comfort’ department, watch “Katie Couric annoyingly smothering Hillary Clinton” @ youtube regarding “how she would feel if she lost.”

In music, the South by Southwest Festival in Austin, TX is in full swing. 3.5GB of music have been made available from the event for download (bittorrent). In other news, ex Dead Kennedy’s singer Jello Biafra compares the Recording Industry of America (RIAA) to the Mafia. Also says “Goebbels would be proud.”

But it’s not the fault of “big media.” The New Yorker puts out Salman Rushie short stories like ‘The Shelter of the World‘ like it’s nothing.

Things to look at

26 types of animals


Cat Rackham Gets Depression - Monstro- Draw

15 Cutting Edge Gadgets and Technologies (Godzilla Hologram video screenshot shown)

Digital Curators.

I don’t think I’m one. I’m too sporadic, and I’m far too young to be trusted.
Micro Persuasion has a similar complaint I had in the past re: info overload + aggregators:

the glut of content as we all know also has a major downside. Our information and entertainment options greatly outweigh the time we have to consume it. Even if one were to only focus on micro-niche interests and snack on bite-sized content, demand could never ever scale to match the supply. Content is a commodity. The Attention Crash is real and - make no mistake - it will deepen.

Enter the Digital Curator. A curator, in a cultural institution context, is a guardian or an overseer. According to Wikipedia, he/she “is a content specialist responsible for an institution’s collections and their associated collections catalogs. The object of a curator’s concern necessarily involves tangible objects of some sort, whether it be inter alia artwork, collectibles, historic items or scientific collections.”

Museum curators, like web users, are faced with choices. They can’t put every work of art in a museum. They acquire pieces that fit within the tone, direction and - above all - the purpose of the institution. They travel the corners of the world looking for “finds.” Then, once located, clean them up and make sure they are presentable and offer the patron a high quality experience.

Much the same, the digital realm too needs curators. Information overload makes it difficult to separate junk from art. It requires a certain finesse and expertise - a fine tuned, perhaps trained eye. Google, memetrackers such as Techmeme and social news sites like digg are not curators. They’re aggregators - and there’s a big difference.

A daily Dose of Ingersoll

via Cynical C-blog

You know that when Christianity came into power it destroyed
every statue it could lay its ignorant hands upon. It defaced and
obliterated every painting; it destroyed every beautiful building;
it burned the manuscripts, both Greek and Latin; it destroyed all
the history, all the poetry, all the philosophy it could find, and
reduced to ashes every library that it could reach with its torch.
And the result was, that the night of the Middle Ages fell upon the
human race. But by accident, by chance, by oversight, a few of the
manuscripts escaped the fury of religious zeal; and these
manuscripts became the seed, the fruit of which is our civilization
of to-day. A few statues had been buried; a few forms of beauty
were dug from the earth that had protected them, and now the
civilized world is filled with art, the walls are covered with
paintings, and the niches filled with statuary. A few manuscripts
were found and deciphered. The old languages were learned, and
literature was again born. A new day dawned upon mankind. Every
effort at mental improvement had been opposed by the church, and
yet, the few things saved from the general wreck — a few poems, a
few works of the ancient thinkers, a few forms wrought in stone.
produced a new civilization destined to overthrow and destroy the
fabric of superstition.

Robert Green Ingersoll - “Orthodoxy”(1884)