To display the most relevant entries to you in priority,
vote for the stories you are interested in
()
and reject those that you are not interested in
()
divp style="text-align:justify" a
href="http://www.akihabaranews.com/news-17117-Hello+Kitty+Clock+unboxing.html"img
src="http://www.akihabaranews.com/news_pics/17117/b.jpg" width="128" height="83" border="0"
alt="Hello+Kitty+Clock+unboxing" title="Hello+Kitty+Clock+unboxing" align="left" hspace="5"
vspace="5" //abr / br / br / Seiko who introduced their new a
href="http://www.akihabaranews.com/news-16996-X.html" class="lngrn2" target="_blank"Hello Kitty
alarm/a clock last week, send us a sample to briefly test it. Well, nothing really particular to
say. This device is just fun, and perfect for Hello Kitty’s fans. You’ll be wake up by
your favorite star’s voice.br / And lastly, you’ll have the “check what’s
doing my boss” function thanks to really useful mirror (Pictures img
src="http://www.akihaba...br /br / a
href="http://www.akihabaranews.com/en/news-17117-Hello+Kitty+Clock+unboxing.html#comments"Reader
Comments/a/pbr clear="all" //div div id="partners_feeds" ul lia href="http://www.dannychoo.com"
target="_blank"dannychoo.com/a - Your portal to Japan (a
href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/dannychoo_com_main_article_feed_eng"
target="_blank"Subscribe/a)/li lia href="http://www.japanprobe.com" target="_blank"Japan Probe/a -
Japan news and entertainment (a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/JapanProbe"
target="_blank"Subscribe/a)/li lia href="http://www.kirainet.com" target="_blank"Kirainet.com/a - A
geek in Japan (a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/kirainet-english" target="_blank"Subscribe/a)/li
/ul /div script
src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~s/Akihabaranews_en?i=http://www.akihabaranews.com"
type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"/script pa
href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/Akihabaranews_en?a=u43oJG"img
src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~a/Akihabaranews_en?i=u43oJG" border="0"/img/a/pdiv
class="feedflare" a href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?a=e2P4O"img
src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?i=e2P4O" border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?a=ufqAO"img
src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?i=ufqAO" border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?a=9Mqio"img
src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?i=9Mqio" border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?a=MpOxo"img
src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?i=MpOxo" border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?a=SKf7o"img
src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?i=SKf7o" border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?a=QUFKO"img
src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?i=QUFKO" border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?a=zA0pO"img
src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?i=zA0pO" border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?a=KFMUO"img
src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~f/Akihabaranews_en?i=KFMUO" border="0"/img/a /divimg
src="http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/Akihabaranews_en/~4/472259575" height="1" width="1"/
Ten-year-old Volker Bertelman couldn't afford a synthesizer, so he modified the family piano to
sound like a harpsichord by pressing metal tacks into its hammers. His mother was unamused, but
couldn't have known that her little boy would make a living doing more or less the same thing,
years later.
Bertelman has become an accomplished player of the "prepared" piano -- that is, a piano that has
been modified by any number of hardware additions -- under the name Hauschka. His latest album,
Ferndorf (German for
"distant village"), was released to critical acclaim by Fat Cat Records earlier this year.
For a typical piece, he makes over twenty adjustments to the innards of a grand or upright piano
using duct tape, felt, cellophane, bottle caps, leather wedges, aluminum foil, sheets of paper
and E-bows (normally used to sustain notes on an electric guitar), as well as materials donated
by his fans. The concept, while new to the ten-year-old Bertelman, seems to have been first
explored by John Cage, an avant-garde composer who began writing for prepared piano in the '30s.
Hauschka brings his own brand of prepared piano to a new audience of indie music fans, while
shocking classical buffs unfamiliar with this sort of experimental piano modification.
"Wherever I play, people are surprised," explained Bertelman in an extensive interview with
Wired.com. "When I'm playing in front of an indie audience, people are just discovering more
classical music. And when I play in front of a classical audience, people are surprised by how
experimental a piano concert can be. I would say my audience is an audience that is open for
discovering things. What's also interesting is that there's a huge range of age... there are old
people, but at the same time there are very young people -- like, 18 -- and they think I'm a
freak."
Bertelman started his approach at a considerably younger age, as mentioned above. "When I was a
boy around the age of ten," he told us via telephone, "I put some all these little metal pins
that you use to pin up paper... I put tons of those in the hammers of the piano, just to use it
as a kind of harpsichord, because I had no money to buy a synthesizer at that time."
There was just one problem with his first piano modification: heavy parental skepticism. "My mom
didn't like it very much, so I got away from that," he explained, until he began work on his
first album, 2004's Substantial in the Welsh countryside.
"While I was recording these pieces," he said, "I thought I needed some more sounds to use, but I
always had it in mind to perform live shows, and was aware of the fact that I don't want to go on
tour with a big band and I didn't want to use a laptop. So I had the idea to invent some stuff on
the strings, to get a kind of electronic sound on top of the piano sound, and that's actually
where the whole thing started. I found out that paper sounds like a high hat, and then I used
beer bottle caps, three of them, on one rope, and they sounded suddenly like a tambourine. So I
had on certain tones a tambourine, and then I had some high hats, so I was thinking in a kind of
band arrangement."
Bertelman and his Hauschka project, which occasionally includes two cellists, also from
Düsseldorf, or various string players from the cities he tours, were up and running. As he
honed his technique with more modifications, including those donated by an appreciative audience,
Bertelman has faced an obstacle unfamiliar to most other musicians: having his musical equipment
summarily thrown into the trash.
"It's quite weird to have material that everybody thinks is just garbage," he said. "But the good
thing about it is that it's very easy to replace. There are not many things where I have to look
in the city for a long time to find those things. A lot of them are very simple things that I can
found in every household."
However, in the future, Bertelman says, more expensive modifications are in the works. He's
already experimenting with e-bows, which apply magnetism to metal strings to keep them vibrating.
And he's working on modifications that use motors, which would let him automate rhythmic drones
on certain notes.
And he has designs on even larger prey: a full orchestra, which he would split into various
sections to mirror the way electronic music is made: one section for melody, another for pads,
another that acts like a big drum machine, and so on. For now, though, he's focused on the same
instrument he first modified at the age of ten.
pFiled under: a href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/aftermarket/" rel="tag"Aftermarket/a, a
href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/minivans/" rel="tag"Minivans/MPVs/a, a
href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/auction-action/" rel="tag"Auction Action/a, a
href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/ford/" rel="tag"Ford/a, a
href="http://www.autoblog.com/category/celebrities/" rel="tag"Celebrities/a/pa
href="http://www.autoblog.com/photos/ebay-find-tim-allens-saleen-windstar/1192718/"img vspace="4"
hspace="4" border="1"
src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2008/11/saleen_wstar_front_450.jpg" alt="" //abr
/ div align="center"emstrongsmallClick above for image gallery of the Saleen Ford
Windstar/small/strong/embr //div br /Outrageous minivans are oddities of the train wreck variety.
You don't want to, but you just gotta look. And we're suckers for them. Not that long ago we had
the ridiculously fast, a
href="http://www.autoblog.com/2008/03/06/videos-jet-powered-dodge-caravan-earns-its-sports-badge/"jet-powered
Dodge Caravan/a, and then there was the show but stock slow a
href="http://www.autoblog.com/2008/11/03/mugen-jdm-honda-odyssey-puts-the-get-in-grocery-getter/"Mugen
Honda Odyssey./a br /br /a
href="http://www.autoblog.com/photos/ebay-find-tim-allens-saleen-windstar/1192719/"img vspace="4"
hspace="4" border="1" align="right"
src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2008/11/saleen_wstar_saleen_215.jpg" alt=""
//aBut what do you think of a a
href="http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemamp;item=140284923828amp;sspagename=STRK%3AMESELX%3AITamp;viewitem"Saleen-built
Ford Windstar/a? And, no, it's not a soccer mom special that someone slapped a Saleen windshield
header on. This is the real deal. It's got custom-made carbon fiber mirrors, valve covers and
steering wheel. The double-nostril hood is custom-made as is the gauge cluster and the fender
flares over the Z-rated 18-inch Rikens. Underhood is a Saleen supercharger atop the Ford V6. The
eBay auction says more than $100,000 was spent on the monster minivan's production. br /br /So who
in their right mind would spend that kind of cash on something originally meant to sit idle in
front of daycare facilities? Two words: Tool Time. As in Tim "Tool Time" Allen. Tim teamed up with
Steve Saleen several years ago to produce the Saleen Windstar. Just as this prototype was finished,
however, Ford redesigned the Windstar and all plans to offer the package for sale were scrapped. br
/br /Luckily the van wasn't, and lately has been used as a promotional tool for a
href="http://www.port-a-board.com/index.php?option=com_contentamp;task=viewamp;id=11amp;Itemid=19"Port-A-Board/a,
a company that makes collapsible skateboards. It was founded by Brett Gregory, who is a producer of
Tim Allen's upcoming movie. And since the Saleen Windstar is still in the family, the winning
bidder can choose to have a photo session with their new vehicle and Tim Allen himself. After six
bids, the a
href="http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemamp;item=140284923828amp;sspagename=STRK%3AMESELX%3AITamp;viewitem
"auction/a is up to $3,650 without hitting the reserve. You've got six days. emThanks for the tip,
Joe./embr /br /div class="postgallery"pstrongGallery: a
href="http://www.autoblog.com/photos/ebay-find-tim-allens-saleen-windstar/"eBay find: Tim Allen's
Saleen Windstar/a/strong/pa
href="http://www.autoblog.com/photos/ebay-find-tim-allens-saleen-windstar/1192716/"img
src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2008/11/saleen_wstar_angle_thumbnail.jpg" alt=""
title="" //aa
href="http://www.autoblog.com/photos/ebay-find-tim-allens-saleen-windstar/1192723/"img
src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2008/11/saleen_wstar_cfiber_thumbnail.jpg"
alt="" title="" //aa
href="http://www.autoblog.com/photos/ebay-find-tim-allens-saleen-windstar/1192724/"img
src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2008/11/saleen_wstar_engine_thumbnail.jpg"
alt="" title="" //aa
href="http://www.autoblog.com/photos/ebay-find-tim-allens-saleen-windstar/1192720/"img
src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2008/11/saleen_wstar_fblas2_thumbnail.jpg"
alt="" title="" //aa
href="http://www.autoblog.com/photos/ebay-find-tim-allens-saleen-windstar/1192722/"img
src="http://www.blogcdn.com/www.autoblog.com/media/2008/11/saleen_wstar_fbrglas_thumbnail.jpg"
alt="" title="" //a/divbr /[Source: eBay Motors]p style="padding:5px;background:#ddd;border:1px
solid #ccc;clear:both;"a
href="http://www.autoblog.com/2008/12/01/ebay-find-of-the-day-saleen-windstar-seriously/"eBay Find
of the Day: Saleen Windstar (Seriously!)/a originally appeared on a
href="http://www.autoblog.com"Autoblog/a on Mon, 01 Dec 2008 11:29:00 EST. Please see our a
href="http://www.weblogsinc.com/feed-terms/"terms for use of feeds/a./ph6 style="clear: both;
padding: 8px 0 0 0; height: 2px; font-size: 1px; border: 0; margin: 0; padding: 0;"/h6a
href=http://cgi.ebay.com/ebaymotors/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItemamp;item=140284923828amp;sspagename=STRK%3AMESELX%3AITamp;viewitemRead/anbsp;|nbsp;a
href="http://www.autoblog.com/2008/12/01/ebay-find-of-the-day-saleen-windstar-seriously/"
rel="bookmark" title="Permanent link to this entry"Permalink/anbsp;|nbsp;a
href="http://www.autoblog.com/forward/1386251/" title="Send this entry to a friend via email"Email
this/anbsp;|nbsp;a
href="http://www.autoblog.com/2008/12/01/ebay-find-of-the-day-saleen-windstar-seriously/#comments"
title="View reader comments on this entry"Comments/a pa
href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/mO22kBT2j7acPY0wE-6brsBnVvU/a"img
src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/mO22kBT2j7acPY0wE-6brsBnVvU/i" border="0"
ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a
href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/autoblog?a=npRgMKyY"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/autoblog?i=npRgMKyY" border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/autoblog?a=OTwb39QJ"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/weblogsinc/autoblog?i=OTwb39QJ" border="0"/img/a /divimg
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/weblogsinc/autoblog/~4/w41dzL-sctE" height="1" width="1"/
As the rival of the Printemps store, Galeries Lafayette's window displays are rarely is good as its
neighbour's. However, one inside the store the incredible Xmas tree will just blow you away. Check
out our photos...
photos : JasonW
Don't get us wrong; we have nothing against Galeries Lafayette. It's just that over the years we've
always preferred the window displays of the Printemps store, more inventive and stylish. This year
is no exception; GL could do with a little more imagination, something new (but - hey - go down and
judge for yourselves!). There are already huge queues in front of the main windows, worsened by the
smaller space available in front of the store. If you want to get a decent view, best go early or -
even better - late, when all the lights are illuminated. You'll find a whole load of teddy bears,
dolls and inverted flamingoes waiting for you!
Despite not being bowled over by the kids windows, we had to admit that the fashion displays were
rather good...
Our favourite was this one, where you had to look down into a mirror to see the model stuck to the
ceiling. Can you see it?...
You should also be sure to look at the displays on the sides of the buildings (most people don't
even notice that they are there). Although they are all sponsored by a brand name and do not move,
there are some humorous touches that should make you smile...
And let's not forget that the interior of the store is one of the marvels of the city. Their huge
tree is awe-inspiring, the carved arches and glass ceiling are both amazing, and the giant balloons
set the whole thing off to amazing effect. Despite having seen it twenty times before, I was blown
away!
And there are couple of things not to forget to see when leaving: 1. A window display on the side
of one of the buildings with Vuitton clothes, surrounded with mirrors and dripping with thousands
of Swarovski crystals...
...and 2. The façade of the buildings and the lights (which are animated this year for the
first time, I think...).
You can see all our photos in the mini-slideshow here, or click here to see the sparkly Flickr gallery in all its glory!
And click here if you want to
visit the official Galeries Lafayette site.
pon friday, the a href=http://launchpad.net/~fta class=bb-urlgreat fta/a uploaded xulrunner-1.9.1
and firefox-3.1 to the ubuntu universe archive (jaunty). It took the weekend to get archive admin
attention, but now it seems like it will show up on your mirror quite soon (hugs to all involved
here)./p pSimilar to what we did for firefox 3.0 in gutsy, we allow you to install this package
next to your #8220;production#8221; firefox 3.0 install. This is done, by creating a copy of your
existing firefox-3.0 profile the first time you start firefox-3.1. So don#8217;t be scared to test
this, just because you fear to bust your profile. Once 3.1 is final we will present you with a
choice again where you can decide which profile to use in future./p pA few more words on bugs:br /
If you have pending firefox-3.0 bugs that you feel would be important to get fixed for 3.1, please
add the firefox-3.1 target to your bug and state which package version you are using./p pFrom now
on we will update the firefox-3.1 and xulrunner-1.9.1 package quite frequently, so if you file
bugs, remember to check if they still apply if you receive an update./p pAlso to make bug triaging
more easily, I would like to remind everyone that mozilla packages have a a
href=https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MozillaTeam/NormalizedBugFormat class=bb-urlnormalized bug description
format/a ... which will allow us to swiftly forward your bugs to upstream on your behalf./p
pEnjoy!/p
pimg class="float_right" src="/~~/f?id=4933dac7796c7ab500f34f05maxX=180maxY=180" border="0"
alt="Kevin_Martin.jpg" title="Kevin_Martin.jpg" width="180" height="180" /During the FCC's December
meeting, chair Kevin Martin plans to push for a free, but porn-free Internet service that would be
available to all Americans. Reports the a
href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122809560499668087.html?mod=rss_whats_news_technology"emWall
Street Journal/em/a:/p p style="padding-left: 30px;"The proposal to allow a no-smut, free wireless
Internet service is part of a proposal to auction off a chunk of airwaves. The winning bidder would
be required to set aside a quarter of the airwaves for a free Internet service. The winner could
establish a paid service that would have a fast wireless Internet connection. The free service
could be slower and would be required to filter out pornography and other material not suitable for
children. The FCC's proposal mirrors a plan offered by M2Z Networks Inc., a start-up backed by
Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers partner John Doerr./p pThe proposal faces objections from consumer
groups -- who say the FCC's filtering will go too far -- and the wireless carriers, who complain
that a free Internet would interfere with their own radiowaves (and customer-base)./p pstrongSee
Also:/strong a href="../../2008/11/obama-s-cto-here-s-who-s-in-the-running"br /Obama's CTO: Here's
Who's In The Running/a/p pa
href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/7w3wacmD_WzxBExGgf51tm6F3JE/a"img
src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/7w3wacmD_WzxBExGgf51tm6F3JE/i" border="0"
ismap="true"/img/a/pdiv class="feedflare" a
href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=foPLcjjA"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?i=foPLcjjA"
border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=AaDMiK5b"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=52"
border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=sNYS7vT0"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=80"
border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=phaeEQsa"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?i=phaeEQsa"
border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=hUI7tEUj"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=131"
border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=0nNCWLo8"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=336"
border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=1jrIs6vM"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=41"
border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?a=d5W2b4HL"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider?d=50"
border="0"/img/a /divimg
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/typepad/alleyinsider/silicon_alley_insider/~4/-AfFoZXRwMI"
height="1" width="1"/
Our pals at Watchismo have launched a new store to highlight their kick-ass line of reproductions
of LIP diode watches -- replicas of Roger Tallon's 1973 timepieces that were among the first (and
coolest) digital watches made. I bought my LIP back in September and I've been wearing it ever
since. Watchismo has offered to give away a LIP watch to one Boing Boing reader (and to offer a 20
percent discount to BB readers on the entire store, which includes dozens of superb vintage and new
watches -- just use the discount code BBWATCHISMO) in a giveaway drawing that's scheduled for the
22nd of December. I love watches -- my grandfather was a watchmaker and I grew up surrounded by
them -- and I discovered Watchismo through a friend's recommendation. Since then, I've bought two
watches from the site, and been given two more as gifts, and each one is an absolute treasure:
beautiful, functional, and distinctive. There's an early digital that you adjust by rubbing a
magnet (hidden in the bracelet) against the back of the case. There's another early digital whose
numbers are actually printed in bright orange LED font on hidden cardboard wheels and then
reflected on a disguised curved mirror that makes it appear that they are lit from within. The
craftsmanship and aesthetics of Watchismo's stocks really hit the sweet-spot for me: they're gizmos
that are meant to last for the ages and be used every day. Welcome to the BoingBoing LIP Diode
Giveaway!...br style="clear: both;"/ a
href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=a3576dc1ffeccf9eca80fd3caf788cbap=1"img alt=""
style="border: 0;" border="0"
src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=a3576dc1ffeccf9eca80fd3caf788cbap=1"//a img
src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=a3576dc1ffeccf9eca80fd3caf788cba" style="display:
none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/
I have 2 hard drives, and I was wondering, can I mirror one hard drive to the other, as in if I
change something on my primary, it will change that on the secondary. as a safety measure if my HDD
fails?
Elaine Peterson, associate professor at Montana State University, has an article in D-Lib
Magazine called “Beneath the Metadata: Some
Philosophical Problems with Folksonomy.” It’s good to see the issues taken
seriously, and many of her premises strike me as true. But, I disagree with her pragmatic
conclusion that “A traditional classification scheme will consistently provide better
results to information seekers.” And I think I disagree with her philosophical critique,
although I am not confident that I’m understanding it as she intends.
I read the article two different ways. At first I thought it was a critique of folksonomies on
the grounds that they contradict traditional philosophical premises. The next time I read it, I
thought it was simply pointing out the differences. Now I’m tending toward my first
reading, in part because her section on the traditional defends it against some objections while
about half of the section on folksonomies is critical of them.
Her philosophical criticism seems to be rooted in what she presents as the Aristotelian approach
to classification: Things are lumped with other things like them, and simultaneously
distinguished from them. Most important, she says, is the idea that “A is not B,”
which means that A cannot be truthfully classified also as a B. But what about digital items that
“can reside in more than one place”? That is “irrelevant,” she says,
“since one is talking about a classification scheme, not about the items themselves.”
I have to admit I don’t understand this. What is the philosophical basis for restricting
things to one category if not that that restriction reflects the metaphysical truth that A cannot
also be B? So, I think she’s saying we are to reject multiple classifications because such
classifications are untrue metaphysically.
This reading is supported by the section on folksonomy, where she identifies philosophical
relativism as “the underlying philosophy behind folksonomies,” and pretty clearly
intends this as a criticism. (I personally am no fan of philosophical relativism, although
there’s a longer story there.) The problem with relativism, she writes, is that it means
classification escapes from the demand that A be A and not be B. I take this as indicating that,
in her section on traditional classification, she is agreeing with the 1930 textbook she cites
that recommends that classifiers give “emphasis to what the author intended to
describe.” If you’re arguing that, on metaphysical grounds, things should only be
classified in a single category, I guess looking for the author’s intention gives you a way
forward…even though categorizing only by the author’s intent is to me like insisting
that readers only underline passages that the author considers significant.
And this highlights what I think is my root disagreement with Elaine’s piece (if I’m
understanding it correctly). It’s fine to raise pragmatic problems with folksonomies, as
she does. But Elaine is pointing at philosophical problems. And those problems require assuming
that folksonomists are trying to do what Aristotelian categorizers are trying to do. But
they’re not. Aristotelians (I’m using this sloppily as shorthand, so pardon my
“tagging”) are trying to find the one true and right category for each thing,
creating a well-ordered system free of contradictions. Folksonomies are trying to help us find
stuff.
Inconsistencies in tags actually make a folksonomy useful; a folksonomy that consists of 1,000
instances of a single tag isn’t worth the folksonomizing. But these inconsistencies are a
problem for Elaine because she is thinking of a folksonomic classification as a philosophical
statement rather than as a mere tool. She says that “perhaps … the strongest
criticism one could make of folksonomies” is that because tags can be true for one group
and false for another,
a folksonomy universe allows both true and false statements to coexist. Because tags are
relativized, personal, idiosyncratic views can coexist and thrive in the form of tags, in spite
of their inconsistencies. Readers of texts on the Internet become individual interpreters,
despite the document author’s intent.
To this many of us will say “Hallelujah!” because we disagree with Elaine’s
opening claim that all classification is about answering the philosophical question, “What
is it?” Indeed, she’s a hard-liner: An inconsistency to Elaine is any multiple
classification, not simply one that contradicts others. Classifying a dissertation about
“Moby-Dick” under “ecology” as well as under “novels: 19th
Century” would introduce an insupportable inconsistency (in Elaine’s terms). She
seems to assume that tags are Aristotelian judgments in which we say that A is a B. But, when I
tag a photo of my wife as “ann,” “birthday,” “2008,” and
“family events,” I am not saying the essence of Ann (or her photo) is any of
those things. Even if I believed in essentialism (I pretty much don’t), we could make use
of Aristotle’s idea of “accidental properties” (non-essential but true) to
explain what I’m doing. And if I tag Oliver Stone’s “Alexander” as
“Angelina Jolie” or “tripe” knowing full well that I am not staying true
to the author’s intent, well, tough on Oliver. Tags are not always truth claims, and a
folksonomy is not intended to mirror nature. Indeed, a folksonomy can reveal the most appalling
areas of ignorance and prejudice in a populace — and, pragmatically, we may well want to
address those popular errors, especially since a folksonomy can indeed reinforce them
But, Elaine is right to point to the philosophical implications of folksonomies. An individual
folksonomy may make no claim to providing the real truth about how the world is ordered, but the
use of folksonomies generally carries some philosophical implications. Elaine sees relativism
underneath them while I see a form of pragmatism. But folksonomies didn’t arise out of
philosophy. They are a “found” ordering: Hey, we have all these tags, so why
don’t we make use of them in a more systematic way? So, I think Elaine is mislocating the
philosophical moment in folksonomies. Philosophy isn’t underneath them or behind them.
It’s after them, in their effect. Folksonomies reinforce our move away from the
essentialist view that every thing has a single category that reflects its single and real
essence. We’ve been moving away from that view for a long time as a culture. The success of
folksonomies as a tool reveals that we accepted the traditional Aristotelian scheme in part
because it was useful. If its utility has been undercut, then we have to ask for the other
reasons we should believe in an Aristotelian metaphysics.
The ball is in Aristotle’s court.
* * *
Most of Elaine’s outright criticisms of folksonomies are actually practical, not
philosophic. She makes them without empirical evidence. She has not convinced me that she’s
right. For example, her final paragraph says:
A traditional classification scheme based on Aristotelian categories yields search results that
are more exact. Traditional cataloging can be more time consuming, and is by definition more
limiting, but it does result in consistency within its scheme. Folksonomy allows for disparate
opinions and the display of multicultural views; however, in the networked world of information
retrieval, a display of all views can also lead to a breakdown of the system… Most
information seekers want the most relevant hits when keying in a search query.
By “exact” she apparently means the results include fewer false results (where a
result is false if the search term doesn’t really apply to the result, as when you search
for “fish” and get back posts about dolphins). And that seems correct: A
professionally constructed index should have fewer of those sorts of mistakes. But the second
criterion in her concluding paragraph is relevancy, and there folksonomies well may beat a
professionally constructed index. Not only might a folksonomy retrieve results more relevant to
me personally or to my cultural sub-group, but it constructs a semantic system that can retrieve
results the narrow and carefully categorizing by experts might miss. So, I disagree with her last
sentence: “A traditional classification scheme will consistently provide better results to
information seekers.” Traditional classification is best for certain types of searches
— ones where you want precision over recall and relevancy, and especially where there is a
confined domain of contents that you have to be sure you’ve searched thoroughly — but
is not as good as a folksonomy for other types of searches.
In short, neither traditional nor folksonomic classifications are best. Each is best for
something.
divimg alt=""
src="http://hits.guardian.co.uk/b/ss/guardiangu-feeds/1/H.15.1/40940?ns=guardianpageName=Art+and+design%3A+The+room+I+cannot+leavech=Art+and+designc3=The+Guardianc4=Turner+prize%2CArt+and+design%2CArt+%28visual+arts+only%29%2CCulture+sectionc5=Art%2CNot+commercially+usefulc6=Adrian+Searlec7=2008_12_01c8=1126619c9=articlec10=GUc11=Art+and+designc12=Turner+prizec13=c14=h2=GU%2FArt+and+design%2FTurner+prize"
width="1" height="1" //divpI am an A-level art student, which means I have a sketchbook, which I am
expected to fill with ideas, notes and drawings - drawings of other artists' work as well as my
own. But I often find myself writing mini-reviews of everything I stick in it, whether it's a scrap
torn from a magazine or a photocopy from a book. Recently, I've started to realise that writing
about art is just as much fun as actually creating it; the two things definitely inform each other.
/ppI am lucky enough to be part of what I think of as the Tate Modern Generation - teenagers who
have, for a good eight years, been able to see modern and new art at a cost of nothing. I don't
live in London, but I love the Turbine Hall commissions, the large permanent collection, the cool,
minimalist interior. Not everyone feels the same way, of course - plenty of my friends don't - but
I'm pretty sure it's inspiring a future generation of artists and designers. My favourite painting
there is Meryon by Franz Kline: what looks like a few spontaneous brushstrokes is actually the
result of rigorous reworking; it's hard to comprehend how you can make something so beautiful using
only two colours. /ppA couple of weeks ago, I went to see the Turner prize exhibition at Tate
Britain with the Guardian's art critic, Adrian Searle. Predictably, Charles Thomson of the
Stuckists had already written it off, saying: "The work is not of sufficient quality in terms of
accomplishment, innovation or originality of thought to warrant exhibition in a national museum."
Adrian proved a much better guide./ppFirst, we looked at Goshka Macuga's work, which confronts you
as soon as you step inside. Her sculptural pieces look like bike racks and handrails, and wouldn't
be out of place at a German airport. Adrian told me they were, in fact, commissioned for this
year's Berlin Biennial, and made from designs by Lilly Reich, the German modernist and lover of
architect Mies van der Rohe. Collages of work by Paul Nash and Eileen Agar adorn the walls, walls
that have been gently licked by elegant strokes of grey; this suits the sharp lines and precise
shapes of the sculptures. /ppIn the next room, Cathy Wilkes had installed I Give You All My Money,
a scene featuring toilets, mannequins wearing horseshoes, and half-eaten bowls of porridge sat on
supermarket conveyor belts. It's not exactly Sainsbury's on a Sunday morning. Adrian and I agreed
this was a very difficult piece. All the ephemera around it made it even more puzzling: the
abandoned pram, the glass bowls with baby spoons suggesting motherhood; the batteries inserted into
jars of Bonne Maman jam, perhaps pointing to an idea of the strength of the family unit. There was
something mundane about it all: you go to the shop, you buy the food, you feed it to your child,
you leave the washing up. /ppRuna Islam's work here is all film-based. I don't really know much
about video art, but Adrian told me about some of the techniques artists use - the importance of
the speed and direction in which a camera moves; the way background colour can influence the way
you perceive a video, in the same way as a painting or photograph. In Islam's wonderful film, Be
the First to See What You See As You See It, a woman wanders around a gallery pushing tea sets
slowly to the floor; the green walls recall a Good Housekeeping magazine from decades ago. (It
might just be the fact that they both use tea cups and small containers in their work, but for me
there were echoes of Wilkes' installation here.) Islam made me want to go away and experiment, to
buy a vintage Super 8 camera and a whirring projector./ppMark Leckey, the only man on this year's
list, has produced a lot of work, and a lot of ideas. There is a small model of his studio, a short
film featuring Jeff Koons's 1986 sculpture Rabbit, and a series of slides showing a circular mirror
and some kind of stuffed animal. A strobe light flickered underneath the carousel slide projector
to simulate the effect of a film; Adrian pointed out the tiny light mounted on the plinth./ppWho
would I like to win tonight? Macuga: her work was the most varied, and I liked the way it
interacted with the gallery environment. Looking at the Turner exhibition with Adrian is something
I will remember for the rest of my life. What did I learn? That you can home in on the minutest of
details - a rosebud, a panning shot - and then build towards an overall understanding of a work;
that amazing art doesn't need to be a painting or a sculpture - it can be an installation or a
video. I also know that art has become a perpetual passion - a book I can't put down and a room I
can't leave./pp· See the other shortlisted young critics at a
href="http://guardian.co.uk/youngcritics"guardian.co.uk/youngcritics/a/pdiv style="float: left;
margin-right: 10px; margin-bottom: 10px;"ullia
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/turnerprize"Turner prize/a/lilia
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/art"Art/a/li/ul/diva
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk"guardian.co.uk/a copy; Guardian News Media Limited 2008 | Use of
this content is subject to our a
href="http://users.guardian.co.uk/help/article/0,,933909,00.html"Terms Conditions/a | a
href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/webfeeds/1,,1309488,00.html"More Feeds/a pa
href="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/t36OI6eV7nI7XjBoYz6WGlO6wiY/a"img
src="http://feedads.googleadservices.com/~at/t36OI6eV7nI7XjBoYz6WGlO6wiY/i" border="0"
ismap="true"/img/a/p
I am selling a beautiful Dresser, with a big mirror and 6 spacious drawers!br / It is a Cherry
Brown colorbr / In Excellent Condition!br / Asking only $279.00 or best offerbr / No reasonable
offer will be rejected!
pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2008/11/parkercospe.jpg" align="left"
hspace="4" vspace="2" width="600" height="400" style="display:block;" /Greg Parker is a professor
of electronics at Southampton University. He's also a wizard. Like his co-author Noel Carboni. Real
wizards, capable of obtaining some images that rival the a
href="http://gizmodo.com/5036411/hubble-completes-100000th-orbit-takes-yet-another-breathtaking-photo"best
of Hubble's/a and giant Earth-based telescopes using less than $15,000 in equipment and more
patience than any money in the world could buy. Their magic: A refrigerated CCD chip, a rotating
dome, and some smart post processing in Photoshop./p pscript type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"
galleryPost('refrigeratedcamera', 8, 'Star Vistas'); /script/p pThese images will be part of Star
Vistas, a book that will be published next year and will collect all their photos of space, taken
since they met online four years ago. The two a
href="http://gizmodo.com/390304/earth-set-to-receive-alien-reply-invasion-in-2015"alien Peeping
Toms/a started to collaborate online in 2004. Neil—a Photoshop wizard with an
astronomy inclination—helped Greg post-process his images of M33, which is a
member of our local group of galaxies along with Andromeda (M31, who they also got in their book)
and our very own Milky Way./p pimg
src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2008/11/cameratelescope.jpg" align="left"
hspace="4" vspace="2" width="634" height="814" style="display:block;float:none;" //p pGreg uses a
28 cm Celestron NExtar 11 GPS reflecting telescope with Hyperstar lens, an optical assembly that
attaches to the telescope secondary mirror, turning it from a slow f10 to an ultrafast f2
astrograph. This system is not designed for the human eye, so he got a matching Starlight Xpress
SXV-H9C one-shot color CCD camera./p pTo increase the performance of the camera, he had to get rid
of the noise in the sensor, which is produced by heat during long exposure times. This is achieved
by installing a solid-state refrigeration system, which lowers the temperature of the CCD to
55º F iless/i than the ambient temperature./p pIn addition to this, there is a last
ingredient in the recipe: Parker moves the dome in his observatory by hand ever half hour, to
adjust to the rotation of the Earth, which results in a moving sky./p pIn other words: Magic. [a
href="http://www.starvistas.com/"Star Vistas/a via a
href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1089886/Pictured-Spectacular-images-deep-space-caught-amateur-astronomer--garden.html?ITO=1490"Daily
Mail/a]/p br style="clear: both;"/ a
href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=8ff437e807ebbc26bec89027e1fd68fbp=1"img alt=""
style="border: 0;" border="0"
src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=8ff437e807ebbc26bec89027e1fd68fbp=1"//a img
src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=8ff437e807ebbc26bec89027e1fd68fb" style="display:
none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a
href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=sWjuvb5r"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=120" border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=MyCSKvar"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=41" border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=wLePWXSl"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=wLePWXSl" border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=ZAAmSw6x"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=ZAAmSw6x" border="0"/img/a /divimg
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~4/-bjKbZgsiWM" height="1" width="1"/
pimg src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2008/11/parkercospe.jpg" align="left"
hspace="4" vspace="2" width="600" height="400" style="display:block;" /Greg Parker is a professor
of electronics at Southampton University. He's also a wizard. Like his co-author Noel Carboni. Real
wizards, capable of obtaining some images that rival the a
href="http://gizmodo.com/5036411/hubble-completes-100000th-orbit-takes-yet-another-breathtaking-photo"best
of Hubble's/a and giant Earth-based telescopes using less than $15,000 in equipment and more
patience than any money in the world could buy. Their magic: A refrigerated CCD chip, a rotating
dome, and some smart post processing in Photoshop./p pscript type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"
galleryPost('refrigeratedcamera', 8, 'Star Vistas'); /script/p pThese images will be part of Star
Vistas, a book that will be published next year and will collect all their photos of space, taken
since they met online four years ago. The two a
href="http://gizmodo.com/390304/earth-set-to-receive-alien-reply-invasion-in-2015"alien Peeping
Toms/a started to collaborate online in 2004. Neil—a Photoshop wizard with an
astronomy inclination—helped Greg post-process his images of M33, which is a
member of our local group of galaxies along with Andromeda (M31, who they also got in their book)
and our very own Milky Way./p pimg
src="http://cache.gawker.com/assets/images/gizmodo/2008/11/cameratelescope.jpg" align="left"
hspace="4" vspace="2" width="634" height="814" style="display:block;float:none;" //p pGreg uses a
28 cm Celestron NExtar 11 GPS reflecting telescope with Hyperstar lens, an optical assembly that
attaches to the telescope secondary mirror, turning it from a slow f10 to an ultrafast f2
astrograph. This system is not designed for the human eye, so he got a matching Starlight Xpress
SXV-H9C one-shot color CCD camera./p pTo increase the performance of the camera, he had to get rid
of the noise in the sensor, which is produced by heat during long exposure times. This is achieved
by installing a solid-state refrigeration system, which lowers the temperature of the CCD to
55º F iless/i than the ambient temperature./p pIn addition to this, there is a last
ingredient in the recipe: Parker moves the dome in his observatory by hand ever half hour, to
adjust to the rotation of the Earth, which results in a moving sky./p pIn other words: Magic. [a
href="http://www.starvistas.com/"Star Vistas/a via a
href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1089886/Pictured-Spectacular-images-deep-space-caught-amateur-astronomer--garden.html?ITO=1490"Daily
Mail/a]/p br style="clear: both;"/ a
href="http://www.pheedo.com/click.phdo?s=8ff437e807ebbc26bec89027e1fd68fbp=1"img alt=""
style="border: 0;" border="0"
src="http://www.pheedo.com/img.phdo?s=8ff437e807ebbc26bec89027e1fd68fbp=1"//a img
src="http://www.pheedo.com/feeds/tracker.php?i=8ff437e807ebbc26bec89027e1fd68fb" style="display:
none;" border="0" height="1" width="1" alt=""/div class="feedflare" a
href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=yzdmQ8of"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=120" border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=o42Xqy9v"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?d=41" border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=9kiEzvQ7"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=9kiEzvQ7" border="0"/img/a a
href="http://feeds.gawker.com/~f/gizmodo/full?a=fovjxUGo"img
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~f/gizmodo/full?i=fovjxUGo" border="0"/img/a /divimg
src="http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~4/lETdrCsFfcI" height="1" width="1"/
iA 'visual' instrument and realtime video sampler for live video performances. Trigger samples,
apply realtime fx (120+), scratch, mix, record. /ibr / br / bAbout this version/bbr / Veejay is a
'visual' instrument and realtime video samplerbr / br / It allows you to play the video like you
would play a piano.br / While playing, you can record the resulting video directly to disk (video
sampling).br / br / Veejay can be used to manipulate video in a realtime environment i.e.
'VeeJay'br / for visual performances or for (automated) interactive video installations.br / Veejay
1.4 supports now the perspective transformation on a per-sample basis, You can use this feature to
calibrate your camera in such way that the video projected corresponds with the object's position
in physical space - at least,br / approximately depending on pixel to millimeter ratio's. This is
great for setups like wall projections such as interactive mirrors or like floor projections with
interactive water (rippleTV) You can also use this feature to project the video onto an object on
stage. This feature is in beta.br / br / Also, reloaded was redesigned to fit better on larger
screens and the old skin is still availablebr / for smaller screens. The new UI is cleaned up andbr
/ some features have been improved.br / br /
)
and reject those that you are not interested in
(
)
