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Tuesday, 2 September 2003
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For a map, click on the words Dove Siamo on the left side.
9:27:46 PM  ;
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Someone asks (rather charmingly): How do I maintain such humility in the face of my evident prescience?
The answer is that I know that any illusion of prescience on my part is the result of the reader's complex apophenic projection on the text. No kidding.
Sometimes you eat the bear, sometimes the bear eats you. Eating the bear, for me, in terms of seeming prescient, might best be illustrated by Rydell's beloved Cops In Trouble show, which was a simple satiric extension of the first couple of seasons of Cops, but which has subsequently, with the advent of reality tv, acquired a different, post-Survivor resonance. Someone may eventually accuse me of having "predicted" Survivor, et al, but really I didn't. Being eaten by the bear? That would best be illustrated by the Soviet Union, looming monolithic in the background of the world of Neuromancer. (One of the things I sniggered over, as I wrote Neuromancer, was that it would be impossible to prove, from textual evidence, that the USA still existed as a nation-state. It never even occurred to me that the USSR might not.)
ON THE OVERNESS OF CYBERPUNK
I just read that Neil Stephenson interview in Wired.
When cyberpunk wasn't over, I had a lot of Joy Division albums, on Factory vinyl.
So definitely over in that sense.
Though in another sense I don't think it can be any more "over" than punk, or the hardboiled detective story. These things are modalities of some kind, and become part of the cultural palette. Which is what I think has happened with cyberpunk.
One of the really refreshing things about the Pattern Recognition tour, though, was how markedly infrequently the word "cyberpunk" came up in interview-questions. It was as though it was finally, in what I take NS's sense of it to be, over.
[Gibson Blog] Not over as much as added to the cultural vocabulary. Just as there are still punks (wasn't Green Day a simple Punk revival twenty years later?)...Cyber Punks will be around and will reappear...
9:03:08 PM ;
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Memoirs of Hadrian by Marguerite Yourcenar (ISBN: 0374503486). What an amazing book! I have read it twice, cover to cover. What a vision! And of course Hadrian's Pantheon is one of my favorite buildings...and nearby is a place called Caffe Sant' Eustachio which may well make the best espresso and cappuccino in the world. Word is that the place has highly customized machines and each employee signs a non-disclosure contract. Indeed they have a little wall around each machine so one can't actually see much.....The coffee speaks for itself!!!
Currently I am re-reading a book called Selbstbetrachtungen (I am reading the book in German, the English title is: Meditations) by the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius who practiced stoicism and, here is the connection to the other book, was picked by Hadrian to be Emperor. I first read this book when I was fifteen. Hm, I just found a new English translation on amazon: The Emperor's Handbook: A New Translation of The Meditations by David Hicks (Translator), C. Hicks (Translator), Marcus Aurelius (Author)...The reason I am reading Marcus Aurelius again is that stoicism appeals to me. It is so unlike me and yet I would like to practice it more. My emotions rule me, which on one hand can be trying and tiring and on the other hand makes for a lot of musical inspiration.
8:57:50 PM ;
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You can be a part of one of the biggest, most effective environmental movements in the United States and around the world. Planting trees in our Global ReLeaf Projects helps the environment for generations to come. And they have a handy calculator, too!! This one is much more sophisticated.
7:24:18 PM ;
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In light of Singapore's ban on text messaging while driving, reader Fazal Majid writes in with this tragic bit of news from France:The French interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy held a conference on June 30th where he mentioned the case of a woman who attempted to send a SMS while driving at over 100 mph. She plowed into a police car on the roadside, killed two policemen and badly wounded two more. The minister said "for a text message, five families are now shattered".Read [Translated from French using Babelfish]... [Gizmodo] Wow! Merde!
6:58:36 PM ;
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CNet News received further confirmation that Virginia Tech will be using 1,100 PowerMac G5s from Apple as part of a supercomputer cluster.
CNet pro... [MacRumors] Is that really Onethousandonehundred G5s? I trust they'll get a discount...
6:56:16 PM ;
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The total amount of CO2 produced by your travel is 1.2 tonnes per year. You can offset these emissions by planting 2 trees
On average I only drive about 70 miles per week.
I shall figure out the total milage of our tour bus this year...
Really, I don't need much of a reason to plant more trees...I have planted over 150 trees over the last decade...Funny, the calculator only goes up to an engine size of 2 liters - that's about half of any SUV? We should spread this example of positive thinking. Go to the calculator and plant some trees to offset your CO2. If you can't possibly plant a tree yourself, you can dedicate, a tree on the above web site. I am sure a quick Google search would unearth some American sites that let you pay for a tree that is planted in your name - or there should be....
6:40:05 PM ;
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Carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are one of the main causes of global warming. And we all produce it with almost everything we do - from boiling a kettle to going on holiday.
The good news is that we can all do something to 'neutralise' that bit of global warming we cause. Here you can calculate your CO2 emissions, learn how to reduce them, have trees planted to reabsorb them and fund cleaner energy to balance them out.
via [Mediaburn] I like the idea. Positive thinking. Go ahead and plant a tree. You should anyway, but if you need a reason you can check out this web site. Try the travel calculator which tells you how many trees you have to plant to become a Carbon-Neutral person. Check out who is also involved.
6:26:09 PM ;
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Heart Still/Beating The new version of Heart Still/Beating on the CD The Santa Fe Sessions contains a little hommage to Tom Petty's It's good to be King from the Wildflowers CD. Yes, I am a Tom Petty fan. At 3:59 of Petty's song a lovely real string section starts playing the chords for another minute and somebody made the genius decision not to add a solo to that loveliness...
So we piled orchestral synthesis (not wanting to spend the cash for the real thing..) onto a new section of Heart Still/Beating...that sound combined with the two cajons (one played by Davo Bryant and the other by myself) makes it one of my favorite parts of the whole album...
6:15:36 PM ;
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9:22:44 AM ;
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How to get rid of telemarketers: Go to above link and dowload the wav file. Record it onto your answering machine. Just holding the answering machine's microphone near your computer's speakers should work fine and then add your outgoing message.
I did this about six months ago and never get rude calls in the middle of dinner anymore....
Explanation: to save time telemarketers use computers to dial their next call which they only pick up once a connection has been made. If the computer hears the beeps on the above wav file it assumes the phone number has been disconnected and strikes the number from the call sheet. It then automatically dials the next number....
9:19:05 AM ;
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© Copyright
2003
Ottmar Liebert.
Last update:
25.09.03; 8:23:46.
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