natecooper.net

Stumbled upon this photoblog by Adrian Mendoza. Not only are the photos impressively well done (lots of great tilt-shots) but many are taken in and around San Joaquin County, my old hometown.

It’s interesting to think how the subject matter he choses; classical musicians from the area, shocking photos of the effects of suburban sprawl on the valley, are not necessarily the most popular or talked about elements of culture in those valley towns. Looking at the photos it makes me think almost as if you have to distort or step outside of the de-facto norm to appreciate the beauty of the area.

They are beautiful and wonderful and a striking contrast to the feeling of actually being there. I can totally appreciate Adrian’s eye and skill to create a beauty out of something that in my mind’s eye is quite ugly. Kudos.

More of Adrian’s photos can be found on his myspace page. (warning: turn down your volume there is a song embedded in the background but the photos are worth it.)

Helen Suzman died on Jan. 1st. Didn’t know much about her so decided to read up on wikipedia

“Suzman was awarded 27 honorary doctorates from universities around the world, was twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize[5] and received countless other awards from religious and human rights organizations around the world. Queen Elizabeth II made her an honorary Dame Commander Civil Division of the Order of the British Empire in 1989…”

27 honarary doctorates! and essentially knighted. Some times I aspire to high goals but somehow I think no matter how hard I try I’ll never reach her status.

The real bugger is that all of her awards and nominations were completely deserved as well since she was the longest standing anti-apartheid member of the South African parliament even when it was insanely unpopular.

Pouring through my Google Reader today I’m reminded of the Bruce Springsteen song from the nineties: 57 Channels And Nothin On: brucespringsteen.net: Bruce Springsteen

Perhaps most bloggers are still feeling the pains from New Years.

This list of fire department maps of New York City from the 19th and early 20th century is like porn for cartophiles.

(via NY Public Library Blog)

BLDGBLOG seems dubious of a WSJ article predicting the dissolution of the U.S. into six fractionalized nations, under foreign influence.

Does this suggest the end of the perfect California burrito?

“nate cooper! last night i had a dream that you owned a… hmm, i guess a park? for kids? and you bought it with student loans. and uhm… there was a tree that had like… 100000 toy monkeys on it, and a hill where you could shoot your choice of projectiles at a target a few hundred yards away.. and there were a million kids in it but they kept injuring themselves because it was all rock. you’re such a crappy city planner.”

Wow, here I thought I was so sensitive to urban development. Apparently not in my friends’ dreams.

The NY Times discusses some of the more popular buzz-words from 2008.

I’m sort of surprised by how many words on the list I recognize since they all seem to have a slant towards various subcultures. Unfortunately the article also has pointed me towards yet another podcast to subscribe to.. sigh.. information overload.

(via kottke)

Wow. Just found out about Book22

“It is our company’s policy that the products we sell be purchased for married couples only. As explained in the book of Genesis, God created woman from man’s flesh and bone to be his companion. In so doing, he illustrated that in marriage man and woman symbolically become one flesh.”

Interestingly no listing for toys, however, there is a section labeled massage.

(via digg)

With the ease of posting provided by Tumblr it seems like everyone is tumbling now a-days. I’d venture a reason for their success- aside from ease of use- is how Tumblr is marketed. “I don’t blog. I have a Tumblr.”

Though I have hundreds of nice things to say about Tumblr I also have a few gripes. One of the biggest interface flaws I see are the lack of comments on posts. Of course you can enable commenting on posts in the settings but the fact that the features is disabled by default is a bit disappointing.

We get it. Tumblr is not Livejournal.

It is great that people don’t use it to whine about their personal lives and start long threads along the lines of “It really wasn’t your fault. He was just being an asshole.” But what makes blogging so interesting as a medium is the conversational tone that online scrapbooks and random shout-outs can take. Having a blog without comments is the equivalent of mass text-messaging a bunch of blocked phone numbers.

We can comment on posted items on Facebook and it doesn’t turn into long, drawn-out threads. In fact it’s welcoming to get the occasional one line kudos like “wow” or “awesome” after uploading a pic or linking to a long-form story from a blog or news site.

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In retaliation here are a few Tumblog posts I felt inclined to comment on but was barred from doing so:
correct bandaging of feline stigmata
Awesome title.

welcome to your destiny
Welcome to puberty.

60 Christmas Photoshop Tutorials
Way to exploit the goyim.

Actually on second thought maybe it’s better they don’t have comments enabled. It’s not their fault. I’m just being an asshole.

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Photo by flickr: thivierr modified under GNU Free Documentation license as follows: cropped and renamed file.

Been doing a fair amount of offline reading so haven’t had as much to write about. Read Everything Bad Is Good for You and was pretty impressed. The book starts as almost a defense of video games as a complex medium, despite it’s being maligned at best as overly simplistic and at worst as degrading society. Steven Johnson’s assertions in the first half of the book as he traces the intricacy in popular culture through television, film and gaming are a great summation but no surprise to anyone familiar with Marshal Macluhan.

Where the meat of the book lies is in the second half when he supports his argument that not only is popular culture more complex than it was 30 years ago but it actually is making society smarter. He uses sociological studies to prove his points and in doing so goes one further in opening up the debate about the effects media has on our minds — even to the point of increasing IQs.

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While in California (my two week trip was also a reason for my lack of posts) I had a few conversations about Blogging, both writing and reading. Most I’ve spoken with seem to express having too little time to spend pouring over blogs and even less to write their own content. It’s interesting because those same contacts would likely agree with Johnson’s argument about the complexity of television with multithreading.

In the same span of time friends, would tell me they didn’t have the time to read blogs or write about their own interests they would extol the virtues of decoding an episode of Lost. I have many friends- smart friends mind you- here in NYC that spend hours on World of Warcraft. I don’t doubt that my acquaintances would feel vindicated by reading Johnson’s tome. In fact, reading it myself I’ve been somewhat inspired to pay more attention to T.V. and look into video gaming as a practice of sharpening my mind.

Johnson himself doesn’t touch much on Blogging and the internet. Sure he mentions how it opens new avenues for viewers and players to critique and dissect T.V. and video games. He also mentions the benefit of all that reading that’s going on since he is quick to note the virtues of rich narrative over the cognitive gains of video games and visual media.

What I wonder, however, is a deeper elaboration on how Blogging and the internet affect society and the central nervous system the same way Macluhan remarks about T.V. and its effects.

This isn’t so much of a criticism of the book, in fact, I was very taken by its arguments and the questions it raised. I’m a huge defender of popular culture as a valid and important discourse. I guess I’m just looking for Blogging to be considered in the same light.