The Radio Paper

Preview for the E-Debate of the Century

2012-02-28T11:10:00.006-08:00

E-books, eloads, and the OECD have garnered conflicted stats in their mainstream depiction. You might remember the story of the famous e-book writer who jockeyed to fame on the basis of her latent text about vampires. Then, there's the Simon Owens piece of 2011 that initially brandished the success of that industry based on the viability of one Stephen King publication before moving along to more onerous details. Owens graphed the success of the e-book industry in relation to one survey on Riding the Bullet, a Stephen King text. Owens suggested that the $2.50 purchase of the King novel ended up jamming the server space of one organization that vetted the novel in electronic sales. He and other industry giants predicted that the "'revolution has well and truly begun.'" For those of you who have been out of the debate between electronic and print copies for the past five years, I will outline the surfeited economic justification for the electronic print industry as well as a prediction of how, though omnipresent in the publishing industry, the true theory behind literary publications remains untouched from the perspective of the thinker, the writer, and information processing worker.

My opinion to be published within 1-2 business days.

List Poem: Life in America

2012-02-24T12:00:00.009-08:00

That it takes years, years that occur in correspondence to life events and not as isolated occurrences in abstract and granulated instances tracing in the lines of the of Polaroids (like lithography) into iterative instances of achievement, trophy.

It is also the strain of hours that are not in the dark in a hallowed and Romanticized fantasy of laboring over work by candlelight, but through the opaque mechanism of cost-efficient lighting and tempering the monotony with the types of dreams distilled in immobility.

It is commingling this with personal adversity, life happenstance, death in the family, the denounement of relationships, change in social status, relocation, financial instability, taxes, estate taxes, attention deficit disorder, post-industrial capitalization, dimorphism, identity theft, Jerry, diaspora, racism, sexism, classism, gender-studies majors, Queer theory, small claims court, collectors, long distance relationships, friends with benefits, second marriages, foreclosures, student loans, social anxiety, mixed marriages, diuretics, enemy combatants, Momma Grizzlies, reality television, yellow journalism, the culture industry, the New Yorker, The Post, Rupert Murdoch, the Koch Bros, George Soros, Alan Greenspan, Woody Allen, criterion collection couples, Internet dating, step-dad, local bands, pitchfork famous, chopsticks, sangria specials, cafe cuties, mall of America, indoor rollercoasters, list-servs, indexical thinking, metafiction, the white Negro (book), death of the author (essay), death of irony (essay), death of the hipster (essay), death, the apostle's creed, latent [,] corporate Catholicism, youth group makeouts, David Lynch disography diapers, trash on Tuesdays, free beer on red eyes, 99 reasons you won't text me back, the Great Recession (moniker), Sex and the City tour buses, the former children of child stars, trustafarians, bankrupcy, Facebox friends, skirting second life, thrift-shopping, fill in the blank, multiple choice, box sets, stealing from Stanely Kubrick, associative though patterns, read-only files, turbulence, tipping well.

Large Cat

2012-02-15T17:00:00.000-08:00

Embossed cat.

the computer's rebellion II

2012-02-05T19:30:00.000-08:00

the computer's rebellion

2012-02-05T19:14:00.001-08:00

Convolute P = Thoughts on PolyMath (Journal of Publishing Reform)

2012-02-04T12:54:00.000-08:00

Controversy surrounding academic publications continues amidst the backdrop of institutes of higher education facing uncertainty in public opinion. Specifically, this discussion is occurring where the cost of public, educational institutions is the highest.

The Detroit News reported in an article entitled "Crushing the Dream" on Thursday, February 2012, that the tuition cost of public institutions is causing invariable unhappiness for students who must grapple with the consequences of these hikes. In this article, Phil Power claimed that "tuition at Michigan public colleges is higher than for nearly every comparable school around the country."

One surprising educational cost?

The pricing platforms of subscriptions to academic journals.

Why

Many rely on these periodicals to enhance their research, gain earn publishing experience on their CVs and learn more about their field. The funding for these materials is generally budgeted by the libraries of these institutions. Notably, the academic community has raised objections to these publishing materials and the UK battle against the Dutch publishing publishing company, Elsevier, has drawn particular notoriety within this professional sect.

Tim Gowers

The movement can be traced back to Tim Gowers, an academic who objected to the publisher in late January. On Gowers's Weblog, he detailed his involvement in questioning the mechanics of the company and explained his decision to avoid publication in the journals. His main objection to the publisher seemed to encompass a look at the practice of "bundling" by libraries. According to the practices of the publisher, a library is more-or-less required to purchase several installments of various periodicals. The materials are sold in sets and libraries are required to finance an entire assemblage of magazines rather than one or two popular journals.

The Gowers post also revealed that part of the frustration with the publisher traces back to problems within the peer-reviewing system itself. Some contributors to this site noted that the academics are not being paid to individually review, edit, or otherwise receive compensation by the company for their edits. The unpopularity of Elsevier in the UK and Springer in France can be somewhat attributed to internal quarrels within the scholastic editing process, but this is not the sole means of the publishers' late unpopularity. Gowers further objected to the support Elsevier, of late, showed in regards to SOPA, PIPA, and other regulatory bills. For all of these reasons, Gowers expressed his disdain for the periodicals.

The Genesis of the Cost of Knowledge

He next suggested that the tactic displeased academics should adopt is one of protest. He opined that the academics should be for the academics should refuse to be published on the site, join an editorial board, edit theseor a combination of the three actions. Gowers outlined that this should be documented on a public site. Indeed the website, The Cost of Knowledge, was founded to specifically organize signatures against this publisher and indicate academics who chose not to associate with it. While Gowers acknowledged that signing up in support of this action could ultimately be seen as criticisms of the individual authors or editors who require such services, it was a gesture against this specific publisher. One can trace these actions back to the original post Gowers made on January 20th.

Gowers wrote, "If all libraries were prepared to club together and negotiate jointly, doing a kind of reverse funding... accept this deal or none of us will subscribe to any of your journals... the Elsevier's profits... would be genuinely threatened." He conceptualized that after the action of the libraries, the academics would get involved. The development of the site allowed the academic crowd to "be encouraged to take a stand if they could see that many others were already doing so and that it would be a good way of making that stand public." But, what's notable about this debate is not what a sizable portion of academics think or do not think about the manner of the academic periodicals.

Not all academics are unhappy with the practices of their journals. Some pointed out that machine learning and bio journals, at least, provide less restrictive forms of subscription. Others appreciated that Elsevier allows writers to retain copies of their preprints. No, what is upstanding about this debate is the platform of discussion created on behalf of these academics in terms of organizing themselves in protest. Gowers wrote in the article that that it was an attempt to coordinate academics and demonstrate their collective bargaining power. It will be interesting to see what the formal response from Elsevier. Such a coordinated movement could dynamically influence their publishing tactics, increase outreach to academics and libraries, and create an ultimately rewarding debate for consumers and producers of journals alike.

While Gowers might suggest that these academic journals are "rubbishy mathematics journals," he raises a point about the exclusivity of peer journals. Perhaps, those in the academy should take note of Alan Cann of Leicester University who had an innovative approach to publishing his own publication. Cann (and undoubtably others) published his work on a site and encouraged the other commenters to respond with their edits in an open peer review. Like any digital community, the commenters reply with their remarks and professional critiques. While Cann's approach doesn't resolve the issue of pay to anyone with their editorial critique, it does demonstrate that the blur between the academy and authors becomes enhanced in a tumultuous economic climate.

Image courtesy of jscreationzs.

Convolute N... (Announcement in March)

2012-01-30T13:50:00.000-08:00

Interlude. I have a better "N" to post for a convolute, but here's a short, metaphysical sort of post until I am allowed to do a press release on topic N.

Nothing like signing on to the World Wide Web after hiatus and finding out that not only do you not recall posting on "We Are All Going To Die," but there is a new blogger on the Intranet, she thought to herself as she pawed at her phone. She imagined herself in another city and captioned her meeting, Two Girls Discuss Magnitudes of Small Things Over Belgian Ale at Keybar.

There were CDs and shiny things dangling from above the lacquered table at 13th Street. The place had a wraparound sort of charm, couple slanted benches strewn to the side, but there were no cloaks left in disarray as there typically were after an evening's close.

She waited for her friend. The girl looked to see what was on tap. She picked a beer that had a wooden, cupid figurine on the handle. She did not know the name of the beer, nor its pronunciation, but the barmaid informed her it was Belgian. She gave her a card for drink deals that was faded. It seemed like she had handed the card out, gotten it returned and then passed it out again with repetition.

"There should be an Introduction to Disqus for Dummies that goes over etiquette in these situations," she sighed and kept talking to her phone. Strange little electronic, the kind of phone that kept time. She wanted one of the moleskins with a watch sewn into a cover. She sipped on her drink, a touch, and noticed no one was on the street at 4 o'clock PM. The only people she had seen were the casual sorts of couples that walked down the street arm-in-arm.

She felt lonesome. Not only did she not recall posting on this board, but the name BigBodyBrett perplexed her. Her friend was late. She wouldn't bother explaining this to her friend. After all, her friend usually responded to her dilemmas with declaratives like, "Boys are only companions. They are only companions."

Lest we not jump to conclusions, it is perhaps reassuring, she noticed (,quietly, on her phone,) that Korea airs this commercial on public television.

Lest someone not be offended, somewhere.

The sounds of sweeping footsteps echoed outside the door. There was the rubble of someone pushing a garbage can to the sidewalk. Someone dropped some quarters. The music grew fuzzier and the sun set, a little slanted-like. A little slanted-like, she waited for her friend. She was writing for the analytics, now, and then the city was calculating it cabs to its burghs.

M is for Madison Avenue MTV

2012-01-19T15:58:00.000-08:00

http://bit.ly/T1TA4

In honor of SOPA, here is the proper link to a proper video with no copyright_infringes_ in this blog.

Convolute L: Elle

2011-12-30T09:55:00.000-08:00

Could not help but notice the similarities between these two covers of Elle, one featuring Britney Spears and one featuring Lady GaGa. The two are certainly similar in the sense that they both flaunt platinum blond hair and credit Madonna as a musical influence.

Convolute K: Kim Kardashian Cites God

2011-12-30T09:46:00.000-08:00

The Jenner-Kardashian brood is currently the subject of a book being shopped in the publishing world. The most notable quotable of 2011? Kim Kardashian found God on Twitter, but she's not the first celebrity to do so, nor is she the first to challenge the public's perception about her through this social network.

Earlier in 2011, the INF Daily posted pictures from Megan Fox's Twitter account. The starlet used her account to upload photos in response to her rumored use of Botox. Check it out here. Celebrities can use new media to manage their own PR campaigns.

Convolute J: Jacque's Justice (Most Creative Error Messages of 2011)

2011-12-30T09:29:00.000-08:00

What could be worse than being foiled by your favorite media outlet? Possibly being directed to an uncreative redirect page. Best "Whoops" designs of 2011 after the break.

#1: The Bleary, Twitter Curmudgeon Chiller Template

This designer for Twitter makes apt use of the ambiguity surrounding the word "chill." Is "chill as in halt" chill or dark? Do you identify with rabid ice cream cones? #immelting

#2: The Mac OS X Disses Spotify (It's-Just-Like-Real-Life Fun Factor of 1.25/5.00 Stars)

Safari, however, manages to convey the hauteur of a Mac down to its 404s.

#2.5: Derrida Deconstruction of the Blog Post

In an unrelated note, there is no better marker of absurdist anger than Angry French Philosopher Jacques Derrida ranting about Angry Philosophical Misinterpretations. Even deconstruction, a system of philosophical communication, gets a bad rap. Much like the Twitter and Mac error messages, he deconstructs deconstruction itself. As a method of literary inquiry, it's like Derrida is sending his own error message out to the public while he frames infinitely more abstract arguments.

#3: Google Bot is Awry

Makes sense that the physical realm of the computer, another system of high-level communication, has developed its own language for errors. As in the case of the Google bot below, which showcases a bot that's broken into pieces. I encountered the bot when trying to scrobble some old photographs on the New Friends blog here, another blog that seems atemporal with its rendition of antiquated photographs and modern text. But, here, you cannot help but laugh at the image of a perplexed robot as a 404 error.

You won't get information superhighway road rage with these error messages, unless that is, SOPA restricts one's ability to navigate the Internet.

Convolute I: International Artists

2011-12-30T09:24:00.001-08:00

These dyads are like an artist's means of showcasing their work to an international audience. Here, the Google+ profile showcases the work with five major pieces and a larger, encompassing profile picture. For artists, this design enhances the clarify of their image. The work is then accessible to an international stage of art.

Convolute H (Runner Up): High-Waisted Jeans

2011-12-30T09:19:00.001-08:00

Z. Cavaricci pants bring to mind the popular look of the early '90s. These have come back in style and are the runner-up in relation to "Holograms."

Convolute H: Holographic Jesus Postcards

2011-12-19T15:04:00.000-08:00

Stills from Coquette (1929)

2011-12-18T08:45:00.000-08:00

The Red - Negative Film

2011-12-12T09:30:00.000-08:00

Convolute G: /g/

2011-12-04T22:25:00.000-08:00

The notorious board 4chan has gathered a following since its 2003 start-up in the bedroom of then 15 year-old Christopher Poole. Poole started 4chan as a spinoff to a Japanese message board, the Futaba Channel, that was called 2chan for short. However, in February 2009, Poole announced that he was 20K in debt and turned to advertising on the site. His true identity beyond his avatar was hidden until it surfaced on July 9th, 2008 in The Wall Street Journal. By 2010, he had gone on to raise $625,000 to create another site, Canv.as.

Of the most popular boards on 4chan?

/g/, the technology forum.

Convolute F: Future of History

2011-12-02T10:20:00.000-08:00

This video was sampled from a recorded discussion that occurred at the University of Michigan in regards to the future of history. The lecture begins at 01:09 and continues with an introduction of the speakers. The terminology "operative criticism" is coined in this discussion. It attempts to draw connections between the past and the present.

Recently, Kwame Kilpatrick spoke at Eastern Michigan. In the present, as of the present printed edition that occurred in their school newspaper on December 1st, 2011, Kwame addressed the role of his past actions in relation to his current affairs. The article is filled with the responses of individuals who are commenting on Kwame's portrayal in the media. There was one protesting person who stood outside the event with a sign that said, "Actions speak louder than words." He was brought to speak at the auditorium by a student organization. In the editor's article about Kwame, she quoted him as saying that Kilpatrick... "is currently facing several federal charges" and he "didn't come to EMU looking for anyone's forgiveness or approval."

Regardless of Kwame's personal responsibility in the political events of the past, he is stressing a platform based on the current. He said, '''You never black enough for black folks.... You never white enough for white folks." It seems that Kwame's constant concern is identity politics. His future concern is the impending litigation, as of the beginning of December.

Convolute E: Education

2011-12-02T10:02:00.000-08:00

Remember the video with the confusing accents and the lady getting kicked off the train who kept insisting that she was well-education? This video was uploaded to YouTube. This video was recently redone in graphic art and can be found at the subscriber's site here.

Not filmed by me, nor drawn by me, and I am unsure of the rationale behind the film. The instance is strange, regardless it has generated a meme culture. This person is belligerent but in the middle negotiating a conflict. This is a recognizable trope.

As we can see in the film, the individual is clearly further incensed when they are merely referred to customer service. That is, until the individual here starts imagining the future conversation with customer service. It is almost as though this person's conversation continues the train of thought while they are mediated out of the train itself.

The second strange thing about the film is we hear the predominance of education being asserted in the film. Being said individual is educated, they attempt to negotiate their position as a member of the educated class. The Conductor, however, is preoccupied with avoiding the conflict, disengaging from the instance, and referring to the dissatisfied consumer to the appropriate department. If this is how we negotiate the conflict of spaces, then the two individuals in the film state their conflict only in terms of their disengagement from each other.

Oddly enough, the entire instance is filmed. Perhaps, the person filming the video is cognizant of a conflict, but the video reveals the day-to-day conflicts we have in transit.

Brandon Harris Triptych

2011-11-27T12:41:00.001-08:00

Convolute D: 3-D Imaging

2011-11-26T15:08:00.000-08:00

The prominence of 3-D graphic design in the healthcare industry intrigued me in this quest for a working definition of modernity. The types of 3-D imagery are stereoscopic imaging (through stereo photography), virtual reality (through computers), or holography (through lasers). Basically, the goal of 3-D is to enhance imagery with the illusion of depth. The documents are then displayed either through 3-D viewers, anaglyph pictures (these require the sexy specs), or screening through digital stereo production.

Back in August of 2011, Clay Dillow blogged on POPSCI that "two MIT researchers... cracked some fundamental problems with high resolution 3-D imaging using a novel gelatinous interface and computer-vision algorithms that, in tandem, can easily and portably provide imaging resolutions that were previously only possible with large... expensive laboratory gear." As a result of this discovery, Dillow's article predicted that the "resulting high-quality, 3-D models can be manipulated on a computer screen to a variety of ends ranging from quality control to criminal forensics to dermatology."

2011 also saw the release of The Immortals, a mythological, big-budget film that director Tarsem Singh used as a platform for adapting 3-D technology to classic, Grecian story lines. Singh's work in The Immortals builds on the same larger-than-life sets. His skill in The Fall, similarly, was of crafting the story-within-a-story. Singh flirted with the idea that not only is, obviously, the plot derivative, but the ability of one to harness technology is only as adaptive as the film itself.

Singh, along with other 3-D progenitors like James Cameron, have a certain skill in adapting new technology to recast what is commonly perceived as historicity.
Historicity, as a philosophical unit, delves into the relation between teleology, temporality, and historiography.
3-D is the medium that depicts the historiography of modernity.

2011-11-21T21:08:00.000-08:00

Private loans are not eligible for federal forgiveness programs, but that conflict is not as well-publicized. The prevailing sentiment is that the corporation has the legal means to charge you whatever they want whenever they want. The government has a laissez-faire response to their regulation.

Convolute C: Chaudhury

2011-11-18T09:41:00.000-08:00

Krishnendu Chaudhury spoke recently on behalf of Google at the University of Michigan. Chaudhury outlined affiliations with the University of Michigan in the Google Books project and when questions arose about the general fate of newspapers, he surprised the audience. An individual remarked that this town, meaning Ann Arbor, used to have a newspaper. Perhaps, the comment was made nonchalantly, but it still raises the question of the past transformation of media dissemination. Not-so-suprisingly, the media cohorts present at the industry who were once equipped for that platform of representation had potentially lingering resentment in how the issue was treated. They suggested that Google return to the public library to continue with archival scanning.

As reported by Search Engine Land in May 2011, the decision of the organization to stop scanning the archival material was interpreted as a neutral instance. Google returned the material to the original partner, Boston Phoenix, including copies of the scans. The evolution of Search Engine Land, incidentally, reflects a turn in media that suggests it is embracing the transition albeit warily. Like no other news organization, however, Google has grappled with interesting challenges. Google has circulation wars, users can experience Google bombing, and all of this Internet socialization exists in a covert lens. Occasionally, it is tempting to imagine that Google was founded as an organization that sought to dapple in Institutional Critique.

Institutional Critique, or the field of visual art that arose in the '80s, suggested that you could view a monolithic organization within a new context in order to demystify the the entity. Andrea Fraser was one performance artist who generated considerable interest. She created the film, "Museum Highlights," that pantomimed the relationship between the museum and the spectator. The film, despite the controversy, ended up becoming an important dialog in art history. Art history is filled with such instances of individuals helping to create the idea that an institution contains an image, which can be modified with time and innovation.

An institution has a narrative and, as with the protests in the Occupy Movements across the country, the creation of the social networking cite Diaspora, and the ability of us to engage remotely, its important that in our excitement to broach new horizons, we don't destroy the existing bridges of communication. The individuals in my class on conceptualism, for instance, suggested that conceptual art can be annoying. For the twelve or twenty or so individuals taking notes, there are connections between print media and modernity. There is writing that embraces non-negotiable spaces, such as transcript, Sprawl, Dies, The Inkblot Records, and other literary works.

Recommended reading aside, the talk with Google was fascinating. Chaudhury detailed that Google is capable of tracking the archives in vertical graphs. The way he described vertical graphs is similar to the aspects of literature discussed in the post-structural movement. Language acquired horizontal and vertical planes of interpretation. For instance, metaphors in a text could be unlocked and applied to planes of interpretation. If this comparison sounds mathematical, it is inherently so.

For what Chaudhury noted was the way that the data being scanned is like snapshots of large volumes of information. The language becomes contained data. The data is interpreted in a graph and viewed by technicians who catalog the material. They can see gaps, for instance, in the years being scanned.

On a metaphorical and literal level, what does it mean if our intake of history is delimited to that available within this one process of interpretation? In this one snapshot of history, do we compute that something is missing? How different, truly, is this from understanding whether 3 gigs of information represent the public as aptly as the press? How different is this from the arguments that characterized the Industrial Revolution? What rights or concerns does the digital humanities have for projects of this nature? How does the public feel about crawling?

I would like to hear some stories about Google. Please leave in the comments section. Spambots, trickery, and artisanship encouraged but subject to critique.

Convolute B: Babinski Reflex

2011-10-29T15:12:00.000-07:00

We're waiting for Halloween and I have a composition notebook. The design is speckled and the font is wide. The cars filter past the stadium on the game day.

Convolute A (Apple Store)

2011-10-26T13:43:00.000-07:00

The mall is the modern arcade. It teems with the modern archetypical figures of the window-shopper, the family, the teenager, etc. The brightest store in the mall is the Apple store. Outside the Apple store is a line of people waiting for the new iPhone. The release is hyped. They're next to a small vendor selling iPhone cases.

I, meanwhile, had a question. I had to inquire about the queue, but that was for the newly released product. I asked the last person in line about this subject. They directed me inside the store where I asked an associate (who was looking at his iPhone) how to order a new charger for a MacBook Air. He looked up from his phone and gave me advice that I already knew or could have looked up online. But, before one questions the value of these living conduits of information, one should take note that I would, sometimes, much rather take advice from a live person instead of parsing through the information online.

Speaking with an Apple Store attendant made me conscious of what extent we are people, what extent we are machines, and how frequently we navigate between the machine-human-world and the physical world. Walking into a store where someone is engaged in a remote world underlines the simplicity of this interconnectivity.