In the wake of Mark Zuckerberg’s public vacillating over the culpability of Facebook regarding its user base data privacy, a follow-up to last month’s ‘public service announcement‘ about the impact of the web on our social cohesion and culture.
Category / Agora
Public Service Announcement: Fixing The Web?
Pretty much I don’t do re-blogging, though I love lots of blog sites. This place is for me; what I think, and what I create. But this wonderful overview of the present technology-mediated crisis Western (and now global) culture is ensnared within — is simply too good and too important not to draw attention to. I hope and wish that some will listen to this short talk, which was given three days ago in Vancouver, and think about it. (Thank you if you do!) This person is “one who knows”, but is practically devoid of egotism.
#Me_Too Credo
Protected: Burkina Boy
A-i-t-S 2 : A Dream For Who
What Arnold Saw at Dover Beach
In a short piece titled “God is Dead; So What?”, Richard Ostrofsky, an acquaintance of mine, lays out his overview of the present culture wars from a perhaps characteristically atheist perspective. He cites Matthew Arnold’s poignant 1867 poem ‘Dover Beach’, which I’d not thought about for over 30 years, and happily revisited. But we subtly disagree about the meaning of the cultural impasse this poem intuits, and about exactly what Arnold sensed over 150 years ago, gazing one night out to sea.
Rumanikos Duet
This 3-minute musical snippet is an improvisation from about eight years ago. Entirely spur-of-the-moment, in the living room, and thus the recording is absolutely low tech. Two musicians, both amateurs. Mon amie is playing a hang, a Swiss innovation, which uses the sides and tips of the fingers to sound resonating metallic ringing tones. I’m playing a digital keyboard which had been set to emulate a zither. What unites these two instruments, an uncommon duo, is the scale they are tuned to. More on that after having a listen…
A-i-t-S 1 : The Bouquet
Adventures in the Supernatural!
How Not To Envision Space Aliens
It’s become less than surprising news of late when some intellectual luminary gives a warning about the perils of AI (artificial intelligence), and I count myself among those skeptical of it’s merits. But an unexpected new sci-fi-esque controversy has arisen recently. Figures no less celebrated than astrophysicist Stephen Hawking have sounded the alarm about our collective complacency concerning aliens. As in extra-terrestrials.
