Stirke Up the Band

I am not quite sure that words can describe quite how awesome this is:

Make sure you make it to at least 3:50.

Wiimote Already Obsolete?

I'm starting tag a lot of stuff like the following video lately. I'm real interested in the digital sandbox that video games are becoming. More and more your seeing games inviting prosuming, including advanced, yet accessible, level editors. Game companies are encouraging users to make modifications, and services such as X-Box live are making it easy to exchange stuff online. Now, it seems, we're on the verge of homemade controllers?

The Wiimote is not obsolete. Its still quite cool. But I'm really beginning to wonder if any of these user modifications will go mainstream. I could see a SimCity / Starcraft type of game built around the hand interface (nevermind if you could create a glove for a baseball game or Manhunt 3: Choker's Delight).

Complexity Theory and Authorship as Plurality

There was a discussion on a listserv today regarding why the individual author has become a myth. I cranked out a short response and figured I'd share. The original poster referred to the Emersonian (right?) "nothing is original" mantra. While I find that interesting, that's not what I identify as the problem. Its not so much that the individual author is a myth, as much as our postmodern ethics are skeptical of the egoist control and assurance that such a perspective purports. I can't help thinking of Mark C. Taylor's discussion his own sense of authorship in _The Moment of Complexity_:

I, Mark C. Taylor, am not writing this book. Yet the book is being written. It is as if I were the screen through which the words of others flow and on which they are displayed. Words, thoughts, ideas, are never precisely my own; they are always borrowed rather than possessed. I am, as it were, their vehicle. Though seeming to use language, symbols, and images, they use me to promote their circulation and extend their lives. The flux of information rushing through my mind as well as my body (I am not sure where one ends and the other begins) existed before me and will continue to flow long after I am gone. "My" thought--indeed "myself"--appears to be a transient eddy in a river whose banks are difficult to discern. [...] One of the few things that is clear even if not obvious is that all writing is ghostwriting. This work, like all others, is haunted by countless specters. Some I know, others I do not; some I name, others remain unnamed. The unknown and unnamed are not, of course, absent--nor are they present. Their silence speaks through my words in ways that remain cryptic to author as well as the reader. (196)

I think Taylor presents us with something more complicated than anti-originality. The constitutive debt to language stems beyond the ability of any individual consciousness' comprehension. Resisting the myth of the individual writer is a recognition of just how much of our reality is built up through nothing more than our symbol systems (and our ghosts-thnx KB). Even at our keyboards, though perhaps the only ones biologically present, we are never alone.

Romantic Rinse Cycle

The all-consuming job search, coupled with adorable baby daughter, doesn't leave much time for blogging (or anything else, for that matter). But I did want to take a few minutes to explain how parenthood has alerted my wife and I to how gender identity is constructed through toys. Yes, that's right, toys.

Here we are, enjoying an episode of House (if memory serves), when a commercial for the PlaySkool Rose Petal Cottage comes on. Seems innocent enough at first--think detailed play house. Now imagine the look of horror that grows on my wife's face as the advertisement shows a happy little girl learning how to: cook, clean, arrange the furniture, and put laundry in the washing machine. That's the real clincher: just as the add says something like: "watch your little girl's imagination grow" it shows the little girl stuffing clothes into the Rose Petal Washer (sold separately, of course).

Sigh.

As ideologically disturbing as the ad was, I must admit some enjoyment at watching my wife's face turn from disinterest, to awe, to moral outrage (for those who don't know, my wife won't allow anything Disney in the house since in their moives women are allowed only two courses: death or finding a man). I think, as the years roll on, Christmas is going to be fun, if only because I can totally see my dad thinking this would be a great present...

DMCA needs revision?

Apparently a few people have gotten together and decided that maybe we should be able to do more than simply consume media. Maybe it would be good if we had some kind of freedom to comment on it, mess with it, or decide where and when we want to consume it. Wouldn't that be cool?

I'm not holding my breath, but there's a bill on the floor to roll back the gestapo-like... I mean restrictive... I mean gestapo-like... implications of the DMCA (like the part that forbids the use of any digital production even in scientific research). The bill is officially titled H.R.1201: Digital Media Consumer's Rights Act of 2005 (DMCRA) (the link goes to a discussion over at Public Knowledge). There's word today over at Gamespot that the newly formed Electronic Consumers Association is jumping on board. From Public Knowledge's analysis:

The DMCRA would ensure that legal, non-infringing uses are not prohibited by the DMCA. Furthermore, the DMCRA encourages scientific research into technology protections. It ensures that activities solely for the purpose of research into technology protection measures are permitted. The bill does not weaken the effectiveness of technology controls; rather it ensures that the controls function solely as intended - to stop illegal activity and infringement. Infringers will still face the same penalties, but the DMCRA enables people who have legally obtained access to digital content to exercise legal uses without fear of criminal punishment.

Since this bill has been kicking around since 2005, I don't think this one's coming anytime soon. And since just about every media mogul in the world (with exception of Google) wants to see this thing buried, chances are this thing's getting squashed like the Yankees in the 21st century. But I'm glad somebody is fighting the 21st century corporate movement to eliminate fair use.

Joe, They Don't Deserve Ya

The Red Sox are down 3-2, with an aged warrior and a dead-armed, quasi-rookie pitching the next two games, and I don't think I've ever been happier as a baseball fan. Well, o.k., there was 2004--that was sweet. But this week has been outstanding.

Its all but official, the Yanks are parting ways with Joe Torre. Torre turned down a one year, 5 million dollar contract (with incentives the deal could have been worth 8 million)--a deal that amounts to an insult. Torre is one of the top managers in the history of the game, offering him a one year deal, placing him in another lame-duck situation, amounts to a slap in the face. I don't think the pay cut (Torre earned 7 miilion in 2007) is an insult, but no manager, let alone a certified hall of famer, would accept a pay cut AND a one year deal.

Why am I so happy? Because I can't wait to see the Empire final crumble. Torre might not have been the best X's and 0's coach- his bullpen decisions were sometimes questionable and his lineup cards could draw criticism. But Torre, like Phil Jackson in Chicago, was a perfect fit for everything that happens off the field. As Steve Phillips on ESPN said this morning-- Torre managed the players, the media, and, most important, George Steinbrenner better than anyone. It is hard to explain to anyone who has not lived in either New York, Boston, or Philadelphia how volitile those media markets can be. Sorry Chicago fans, I've lived in your area for five years now, and its just not the same. Torre has operated in arguably the most difficult arena for over a decade, and has always steadied the ship (a ship that has included Giambi and A-Fraud). His presence keeps everyone calm and focused, and if you think that filling out a line up card is more important than maintaining mental health over 162 games, well, your crazy.

Please don't tell me about the 1.3 billion dollars the Yankees have spent. Let me explain:

• Jason Giambi: 7 years, 120 million - Need I comment?
• Carl Pavano: 4 years, 40 million - what does 10 mil a season buy you? 5-6 record with an ERA of 4.77
• Mike Mussina: 2 years, 23 million - demoted to AAA with an ERA over 5.00 this season
• Kyle Farnsworth: 3 years, 17 million - "Flamethrower" put up an ERA of 4.80, allowing 87 baserunners in 60 innings
• Kei Igawa: 5 years, 20 million - 2007 ERA: 6.25
• Jaret Wright: 3 years, 21 million - Yankees agreed to pay half his contract just to get rid of him
• Randy Johnson: 3 years, 48 million - Johnson was 41 and already suffering back problems when the Yanks agreed to this deal
• Javier Vasquez: 4 years, 45 million - Everyone thought this would be a good deal. Oops. They are still paying the majority of this contract
• Jose Contreras: 2 years, 15 million - Before there was the Dice-K bidding war, there was the not-so-great Cuban defector
• Jeff Weaver: 2 years, 10 million dollars - details on the salary are sketchy, but the Yanks had to unload him for...
• Kevin Brown: 7 years, 105 million - The Yanks didn't sign this contract, but they traded for Brown to unload Weaver. Count the yanks for 2 years and about 30 million
• Octavio Dotel: 1 year, 2 million - comparatively, he doesn't even belong on this list
• Bobby Abreu: 1 year, 15 million - While Abreu hit .280 and knocked in 100 runs, one has to wonder if he's worth the 15 plus million a season the Yanks are paying him. He no longer plays right field well, isn't a threat on the basepaths, and hit only 16 homeruns this past season

So, what does that leave us? Let's see: that's about 406 million dollars that have either not produced up to expectation or (in most cases) failed to produce at all. And, notice I didn't put A-Rod on this list, I'll leave it up to you to figure if he's earned the approximately 70 million the Yanks have paid him over the last four years; for my money, since the Rangers pay almost a third of his 25 million annual contract, A-Rod comes at a fair bargin. Productive hitter, social headcase. Well, anyway, instead of talking about how Torre failed to win with a 1.3 billion dollar payroll, let's talk about how Brian Cashman and the Tampa Brain trust squandered a third of that total on terrible, terrible pitching. And, with the exceptions of Vasquez and Contreras, most people knew that these pitchers weren't worth the price.

So let a new manager enter New York. Let him deal with facing players who worshipped Joe Torre. Let him explain to Derek Jeter (and if they are still around, Posada and Rivera) that things need to change. Oh goodness, that will be fun. Let him lose a few games in a row. Let him face the media. The media who helped run Joe out of town and who will, next season, remind the annointed at every turn that Torre never missed the playoffs. And let the new manager respond to Tampa. Yes, the new manager will inherit what is looking like one of the best young pitching cores in baseball (Hughes and Chamerlain). But he also inherits a distgruntled locker room, an old bullpen, an intense media, and an always irrate owner.

Plaaay balllll!

Review Writing for Amazon

Today we want to look at a few Amazon.com book reviews for Tapscott and Williams' Wikinomics in order to generate a sense for what distinctive features good reviews contain.

• Donald Mitchell [April 6th, 2007]
• Bradley Gessler [January 15, 2007]
• M McDonald [December 28, 2006]
• Rolf Dobelli [February 23, 2007]
• David Brett [ February 9th, 2007]
• Manny Hernandez [January 20, 2007]
• Robert D. Steele [January 17, 2007]
• Laura K. Turner [January 12, 2007]

We're going to read each of the reviews above and try to see if we cannot discern some structural principles for reviews on Amazon. As we read each, I want you to:

1. Write the purpose of each paragraph in the review, paying particular attention to the first and last paragraph
2. Note how the reviewers frame their ethos or incoporate personal information into the post
3. Pay attention to what specific details from the book reviewers tend to cite
4. Pay particular attention to how the reviewers offer criticism

By the end of class today, we should be able to generate a pretty good primer on review writing.