Tuesday, February 22, 2005

mediaburn Fire on her words. roquentin posted a photo: Experiment By (roquentin). [words - Everyone's Tagged Photos] 9:57:22 PM

Unbreakable in Battle Hindu Myths. Hindu Myths: A Sourcebook Translated From The Sanskrit, translated by Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty (1975). If you're looking for a book which lays out Hindu mythology as an easy-reading, linear storybook, this isn't it. This is more of an academic study, with each mythological thread preceded with some commentary and then traced through its evolving versions over centuries of religious texts. Still very interesting, though sometimes confusing, as everyone seems to have an unlimited supply of aliases (it's worse than a punk rock band!), which keeps you flipping back to the glossary to check who's who now. The early creation myths are especially knotty, with a lot of recursiveness -- though circularity, contradiction and dizzying dream logic are a constant throughout. Like all the world's mythologies, there's some pretty nutty stuff going on, yet here and there are amazing passages -- like this bit from Siva's preparations to destroy the triple city of the demons: "Having made the year embroidered with the six seasons his bow, he made his own shadow the bow string, unbreakable in battle." [Irregular Orbit] 6:34:14 PM

Susie Watson and Barbara Luhring PopGoesTheCulture.com Pop Goes the Culture - OpenPodcast.org #1071. way cool [OpenPodcast.org] 6:16:32 PM

The Internet and the Non-Technical Call For Non-Techie Web 2.0 Stories. One of my readers Taewoo Danny Kim recently compared Web 2.0 to the Semantic Web and I think he hit on an important point. He wrote in an email that Web 2.0 and the Semantic Web are... "...basically moving towards the same thing (web as platform) from two different directions: web 2.0 more from the business side and the Semantic Web more from the political (W3C) and academic (research) side." Here on R/WW I tend to focus on business applications of 'Web as Platform' technologies, so I think twdanny is spot on. I've focused a lot on innovative software companies like Bloglines, Feedburner, Flickr, Amazon, Google, Yahoo, PubSub, etc. But pretty soon I'll start to more fully explore how non-techie businesses are being transformed by Web 2.0. Over the past couple of months I've had email exchanges with people from various backgrounds: e.g. lawyers, investment analysts, librarians, journalists, marketers, PR people, educators. Plus of course technologists! I've also had emails from Internet executives who've told me they read my blog and like my ideas (much to my delight!). I want to hear your stories Web 2.0 is more than just a Silicon Valley phenomenon - it's transforming nearly every industry. There's certainly been a lot of talk about how journalism is being disrupted. I think most other industries are too and I'm planning to explore that in the coming months. So keep an eye out for a wider range of business-related Web 2.0 stories on Read/Write Web. If you're a non-geek reading this, I'd love to know what interests you about Web technology and how you believe it is transforming your career or life. Plus if you have any specific topics you'd like me to write about, let me know! In either case, please leave a comment here or email me at readwriteweb AT gmail DOT com. [Read/Write Web] 6:07:48 PM

Prius Television Toyota's Prius spots look to "normalize" the car. Filed under: Television Toyota will take an interesting tack with its new Prius campaign, focusing more on the car's overall performance and not so much on the environmental "savings" that come with owning the vehicle.  It's curious, considering what the car's main selling point has been - or at least it's most conversed about point.  Then again, perhaps pointing out that, no matter what, it's still a car at the end of the day is the easiest way to mainstream the vehicle. Read Permalink | Email this | Comments [0] [AdJab] 6:01:47 PM

fuss about What's all the fuss About.com?. The New York Times + $410 million + About.com = a lot of people buzzin'. [Hypergene MediaBlog] 5:58:12 PM

TV Ark British TV History. At TV Ark, the Television Museum. [The Cartoonist] 5:55:46 PM

Daytona 500 Spots Daytona 500 brings a slew of new spots. Filed under: Funny, Television The Daytona 500 was chock full of new spots this weekend, and FOX Sports has a roundup of 'em, plus streaming video.  Some favorites: UPS, "Drive the Truck" with Dale Jarrett - was just as funny as expected, should make for a good series this year Coca-Cola, "Drivers" - at first I wasn't so enamored by it, but the abstractness of it all grew on me.  Smart move, slick animation Nextel, "Giant Turkeys" was pretty awesome as well.  At first you don't get it, but when you see the end, it all makes sense.  Plus, it's just like the food that you can find outside of a NASCAR race. Read Permalink | Email this | Comments [0] [AdJab] 7:08:01 AM