Stung Eye link

Link: The New French Hacker-Artist Underground

Thu, 26 Jan 2012 15:26:00 +0100

Like computer hackers who crack digital networks and surreptitiously take control of key machines, members of UX carry out clandestine missions throughout Paris’ supposedly secure underground tunnels and rooms.

Through meticulous infiltration, UX members have carried out shocking acts of cultural preservation and repair, with an ethos of “restoring those invisible parts of our patrimony that the government has abandoned or doesn’t have the means to maintain.”

Link: What the Public Commons Is Missing

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 12:57:00 +0100

“The natural home for ideas and creations is in the commonwealth, the public domain. We cleverly give the creators of ideas and art and inventions a temporary monopoly for their creations outside of the commonwealth in order to encourage them to make more new things. That is good. For a while that temporary period in the US was 58 years after the work was created for copyright and 17 years for patents.”

When copyright was first brought into law in the UK (1709) the terms were 21 years for books already in print and 14 years for new ones, with an additional 14 years if the author was still alive when the first term ran out.

“Unfortunately, as creators became corporations, they have lobbied for laws (and financially supported the elections of lawmakers) that have extended the “temporary” period till it is in effect, unlimited for copyright.”

Also: Copyright and Wrong - Why the rules on copyright need to return to their roots

“The notion that lengthening copyright increases creativity is questionable. Authors and artists do not generally consult the statute books before deciding whether or not to pick up pen or paintbrush. And overlong copyrights often limit, rather than encourage, a work’s dissemination, impact and influence. “

Link: Canada Considers Extending Copyright to Life + 70 Years

Sun, 08 Jan 2012 12:52:00 +0100

“Canada celebrated New Year’s Day this year by welcoming the likes of Ernest Hemingway and Carl Jung into the public domain just as European countries were celebrating the arrival of James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, 20 years after both entered the Canadian public domain. Canada’s term of copyright meets the international standard of life of the author plus 50 years, which has now become a competitive advantage when compared to the United States, Australia, and Europe, which have copyright terms that extend an additional 20 years.”

“The Canadian government filed notice of a public consultation on December 31, 2011 on the possible Canadian entry into the Trans Pacific Partnership (TTP) negotiations, trade talks that could result in an extension in the term of copyright that would mean nothing new would enter the Canadian public domain until 2032 or beyond.”

“Now is the opportunity to help preserve the public domain in Canada by speaking out against TPP copyright provisions that would extend the term of copyright or impose even stricter digital lock rules. The consultation is open until February 14, 2012. All it takes a single email with your name, address, and comments on the issue.

The email can be sent to consultations@international.gc.ca.”

Link: Flaws in the 2010 Winnipeg Police Annual Report

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 13:54:46 +0100

“There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.”

Looks like the Winnipeg Police Service needs bone up on their math skills. Their 2010 annual report includes some strange stats. When comparing 2010 with 2009:

They report a 20-30% decrease in crime per district, even though their reported city-wide decrease is only 7%.
This 7% decrease, when compared with their actual reported offence numbers, turns out to be a 9% increase.
They report a decreases in “Events for Service” for all districts, even though there was no significant city-wide change in “Events for Service” between the two years.

Some of these discrepancies appear to be tied to the new WPS policy of listing certain incidents as “non-district specific.”

Link: Precise Knowledge of Good and Evil?

Fri, 25 Nov 2011 11:12:00 +0100

A Quora thread on Etz haDaat tov V’ra, the fall of man from Genesis the first book of the Jewish and Christian Bibles.

Some responses worth reading:

“The question exhibits three further imprecisions about the fruit of this tree.”
— A close look at the question at hand.

“Genesis is just one of many attempts on the part of early man’s collective unconscious to narrativise a growing awareness that our species.”
— English gentleman Stephen Fry’s response.

“God did not want us to live forever in fear and shame, He needed to heal the self-inflicted wounds from the knowledge of good and evil before eternal life would be a gift.”
— Brother Francis Thérèse of Salvador da Bahia Mission

Related: On the Marionette Theater. In search of grace in adulthood, the burden of self-aware.

Link: It’s Time to Stop Talking About Copyright

Thu, 03 Nov 2011 15:12:41 +0100

I’m all for sorting out the rules that govern the entertainment’s supply chain, but let’s keep some perspective here: when we ‘‘solve’’ copyright problems at the expense of the Internet, we solve them at the expense of 21st-century society as a whole. — Cory Doctorow

Link: This is a Work of Fiction

Sun, 23 Oct 2011 12:09:51 +0100

“Work of Fiction is a strange little game. 20 puzzles to solve and an enormous conspiracy theory to uncover.” - 2DArray

Link: On the Marionette Theater by Heinrich von Kleist

Wed, 14 Sep 2011 13:10:00 +0100

This is a fictional dialogue where one character comments that marionettes possess a grace humans do not, even though the marionettes are themselves controlled by humans.

From the post-script: “Kleist’s essay pivots around a reference to the third chapter of the book of Genesis, the story of the Fall of Man, the discovery of that self-consciousness which establishes and perpetuates human isolation. But ‘discovery’ implies a historical event. [However, it] is only our concept of time which makes us think of the Fall of Man as a historical event in the distant past. It is happening all the time. The biblical story is a mythical representation of constant human awareness of self.”

From Wikipedia: “Our consciousness and capacity for reflection cause us to doubt ourselves or become self-conscious, and prevents us from acting with the singlemindedness and purity of an animal or a puppet. And yet, consciousness is the effect of eating from the tree of knowledge, and we cannot escape it, as long as we are barred from Eden.”

In other words, as we become self-aware (which we all do as we grow up) we fall from grace. Kleist posits that the only way to return to this state of grace is through the continued pursuit of knowledge, the continued discovery of self. And perhaps that is what we call wisdom, the grace of youthful innocence regained through conscious self-discovery. A backdoor to the Garden.

Link: Melissa Martin's Love Letter to the Village

Sat, 10 Sep 2011 09:53:47 +0100

“I love the shape of the place; I love the green of its ceiling, pierced by the spires of aging churches and the battered red bricks of old post-war apartments. They’re mostly condos now. Because the Village has changed, but not for the worse. When I moved into the Village, it seemed most people here were like me: young, teens and early 20s, out for a party, buying pot at the Circle and mix at Shoppers and moving on into the arterial back lanes.”

Link: Is it OK to run an illegal library from my locker at school?

Tue, 30 Aug 2011 19:10:00 +0100

Private school student starts a library of school-banned books out of his or her locker. (Original question deleted at Yahoo Answers. Preserved as an image.)

Link: Leave the libraries alone. You don’t understand their value.

Tue, 16 Aug 2011 14:11:00 +0100

Philip Pullman’s call to defend libraries.

Link: Ask MeFi: Movies to Grow by?

Sun, 10 Jul 2011 13:04:25 +0100

What movies should I show my daughter to introduce her to art-house/world/indie cinema?

My suggestions.

Link: This is Water - David Foster Wallace

Thu, 30 Jun 2011 14:40:00 +0100

“The really important kind of freedom involves attention and awareness and discipline, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them over and over in myriad petty, unsexy ways every day.

You get to consciously decide what has meaning and what doesn’t. You get to decide what to worship.”

Link: The Eternal Shame of Your First Online Handle

Thu, 30 Jun 2011 12:37:00 +0100

“The other day I made a comment on someone’s blog and I noticed I was the only one that put my online pseudonym into the name field”

My handles:

90s BBS: Remus McGrath
90s IRC & USENET: Way-K or way_k
00s Web: Wally Glutton aka stungeye

Link: Where Am I?

Mon, 27 Jun 2011 10:28:54 +0100

This game is one part roguelike, one part simon, one part amazing.

Click the grey playing area once, then used the arrow keys for movement.

Link: Tunnels Hidden Below Downtown Winnipeg?

Fri, 27 May 2011 12:28:00 +0100

My response to a treasure-hunting thread on /r/winnipeg.

Link: UE in Winnipeg

Fri, 27 May 2011 12:21:07 +0100

Urban Exploring in Peg city.

Link: Teaching Ruby using "Coding Challenges"

Thu, 26 May 2011 16:00:55 +0100

Slides from a talk I gave yesterday for the RRC BIT Instructor Show and Tell.

Link: Anatomy of a Mashup

Fri, 13 May 2011 11:18:27 +0100

A Daft Punk megamix visualized using HTML5 with Canvas/Js.

Link: 2011 Canadian Federal Election Visualized

Tue, 10 May 2011 11:43:33 +0100

The election results beautifully mapped. Includes some analysis on a NDP/Lib merger.

One question though: Folks are framing an NDP/Lib merger as “uniting the left”, but the Libs aren’t really left, are they?

Actually, two questions: Do we really want a two party polarized political landscape like the US? Political discourse in Canada is already black and white enough, let’s not remove all the grey.