Xanadu-little

Over at the WalkerFox Blog, I share some thoughts on the Smart House, fuelled by Davin Heckman's book A Small World. Let's build!

Antinomies of Futurology

'Thanks to modern communications - email, MMS messaging and, in particular, Tweets - we were able to find out what the ordinary Iranian people were feeling without filters, restrictions or censorship. Truly amazing.' So says Richard Bacon, writing in Tuesday's Sun, in a 'personal view on how technology shaped the Noughties'.

Maybe. The pace of technological change is truly impressive these days. So how come the BBC still finds it impossible to pay my appearance fee for being a guest on his show in 2009?!!?

Near Silence in the Library

Not a lot of blogging of late. Some of my pithier updates now appear on Facebook or Twitter. Liking the sound of my own voice won't cut it anymore, not that it ever did. As Bourdieu reminds us:

Now, if there is one thing that our ‘modern’ or ‘postmodern’ philosophers have in common, beyond the conflicts that divide the, it is this excessive confidence in the power of language. It is the typical illusion of the lector, who can regard an academic commentary as a political act or the critique of texts as a feat of resistance, and experience revolutions in the order of words as radical revolutions in the order of things. (Pascalian Meditations, p.2)

Let the Twittering Begin

Yes, I know I've been neglecting this blog of late. Some of the more anecdotal, chatty and unnecessary one-liners continue to appear at Facebook - where I was a relatively early adopter - from time to time. I will now be (late) adopting Twitter to see if that gets me anywhere in life (see links). More later.

The Uses of English

From my inbox:
"This is an important email from Ticketmaster with regards to your booking for Monkey: Journey to the West at Monkey's World, The O2.It has come to light that there has been some confusion with the terminology used in the text for this event.The term 'Journey Starts' does not mean there is any form of pre-show activity. It was simply a term chosen to keep in with the show's title and theme - 'Journey to the West.' The 'Journey' time refers to the door opening time.

Please accept our sincerest apologies for any inconvenience caused." Quite.

Meanwhile my DVD rental service has more inappropriate-sounding tidings for me:
"Dear Graham, Good news! We've just posted Cannibal Holocaust to you, so please look out for it." Good news indeed.

Full disclosure

At the start of this month I was chatting to Terri Senft, author of Camgirls. I never got around to applying my crude binary logic and asking the $64,000 dirham question, namely: the breakdown of public and private - is it a good thing or a bad thing?

In the interests of full disclosure, I can say that in the month of September I saw Forster Gallery-hosted bands Penguins, Kill Kenada and, elsewhere, The Secret Project. I saw Leicester City beat Leyton Orient and went to the opening night of the Russian Film Festival. I bought the "Neptune City" CD and watched Carnivale season 1.

Not the most useful information ever to come your way. But more on all this in a future post.

Has romance lost its Spark(ey)?

According to one of my Facebook newsfeeds:
"In total, you were reviewed for dating 54 times and one person expressed interest in you. You are more desirable than 44% of 37,391,024 people. Recently you were viewed 10 times and no people expressed interested in you."

Ha! Eat my shorts, all 16,452,050.56 of you.

How is one supposed to hook up based on this data? Your guess is as good as mine.

Hanson (and Grendel)

As pointed out previously, this week's Beowulf movie has set the critics talking about digital filmmaking once again. Bang on cue, one of my own contributions on the topic rocks up on the Audacity website. Like comedy, being topical is all in the timing.

Something Wiki This Way Comes

Not long ago I blogged an anecdote illustrating the unreliability of Wikipedia as a research tool (18 October). I'm not sure if it's a coincidence or not, but within five days user 86.136.176.158, apparently a London-based BT Broadband customer, nipped onto the page about me and "associated" me with an organisation that was disbanded in 1997. (My weekly TV and radio appearances in summer 2005 were also cut from "frequent" to "some", although with hindsight, given the mindlessness of most of the radio slots, I would have settled for "some".)

The user history shows an hour spent online toying with a fleeting obsession, suggesting a pound sterling wasted on "research" in a London internet cafe. But then at close to 2 a.m., up go six factoids, suggesting both personal knowledge to do with left-leaning greens in higher education such as Derek Wall (if they are correct), and a home broadband connection. Hence the following cyber-footprint (most recent changes first):

02:01, 24 October 2007 (hist) (diff) Institute of Education‎ (→Notable people) (top)
01:59, 24 October 2007 (hist) (diff) Denis Smalley‎ (top)
01:58, 24 October 2007 (hist) (diff) City University, London‎ (→Academics)
01:57, 24 October 2007 (hist) (diff) City University, London‎
01:56, 24 October 2007 (hist) (diff) Goldsmiths, University of London‎
01:54, 24 October 2007 (hist) (diff) Derek Wall‎ (→Political Career) (top)
21:51, 23 October 2007 (hist) (diff) Entryism‎ (→In the United Kingdom)
21:51, 23 October 2007 (hist) (diff) Front organization‎ (→See also)
21:50, 23 October 2007 (hist) (diff) Front organization‎ (→See also)
21:50, 23 October 2007 (hist) (diff) Front organization‎ (→See also)
21:50, 23 October 2007 (hist) (diff) Entryism‎ (→See also)
21:49, 23 October 2007 (hist) (diff) Entryism‎ (→See also)
21:36, 23 October 2007 (hist) (diff) James Heartfield‎
21:36, 23 October 2007 (hist) (diff) James Heartfield‎
21:35, 23 October 2007 (hist) (diff) James Heartfield‎
21:12, 23 October 2007 (hist) (diff) Fiona Fox (UK press officer)‎ (top)
21:11, 23 October 2007 (hist) (diff) Claire Fox‎ (→Criticism)
21:08, 23 October 2007 (hist) (diff) Living Marxism‎ (→George Monbiot and the 'LobbyWatch Network')
21:07, 23 October 2007 (hist) (diff) Brendan O’Neill‎
21:04, 23 October 2007 (hist) (diff) Brendan O’Neill‎
21:04, 23 October 2007 (hist) (diff) Brendan O’Neill‎
21:00, 23 October 2007 (hist) (diff) Graham Barnfield‎
20:59, 23 October 2007 (hist) (diff) Graham Barnfield‎
20:58, 23 October 2007 (hist) (diff) Living Marxism‎ (→See also)
20:57, 23 October 2007 (hist) (diff) Living Marxism‎ (→George Monbiot and the 'LobbyWatch Network')
20:51, 23 October 2007 (hist) (diff) Graham Barnfield‎

Why beat a three-hour retreat from, err, repeating information in the public domain, Woodward? Scared of missing the 10-minute freeview on the Adult Channel? Trying to catch last orders, unaware of Britain's relaxed licensing laws? Get a life or at least go to bed...

Once again the blogosphere/wikiworld is shown to be a great place for avoiding important issues. Next thing someone will have grammar-flame drama queen Oliver Kamm bang to rights, for calling Flight KAL 858 Flight 857, or some other such breakthrough ...

1966 and all that

One of the duties/chores/professional obligations of the lecturer, especially the journalism lecturer, is to warn students, especially student journalists, of the shortcomings of Wikipedia.

Where am I going with this rambling post?

Recent I was working alongside a well-known former England footballer who had a slate of press interviews lined up. Certain internet print-outs were doing the rounds among his interviewers. "So, you met your wife at a dry cleaners..." started one question. "No, at an ice rink," came a bemused reply. "Where do people get this stuff from?"

Where indeed?


Try reading a book...