Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Sunday, September 5th, 2010
Photo by Ruth.Ran my first half marathon today. Training for and completing a medium-long distance race was something I wanted to do, to see what it is that Ruth is into. She picked the Disneyland Half, which seemed like a weird choice to me. It seemed unnecessarily expensive and … Disney-related … to me.
I also hated some of the training runs. I thought I just wasn’t into running, and I couldn’t see why I’d ever again run more than seven or eight miles. That sort of distance is a lot of fun; everything longer just seemed like torture to me. Last week I all but swore off of long workout runs and races longer than 10k.
Today, though, I had a blast. I appreciated the Disney Corporation’s terrific, ruthless organization. They mobilized a staggering number of people and resources to support and cheer for and entertain the runners in a really wonderful way. And I realized that all of those torturous Sunday runs were really great, because they put me in a position to enjoy myself today. Unlike the way that I usually exercise, like a basketball game or a short run, those runs weren’t ends unto themselves. They were … training. Which is a normal thing that people do, and I’m feeling pretty slow for not realizing earlier that you shouldn’t judge whether you “liked” training before you get to the payoff.
Hot on the tails of my last vegetarian post, I learn the City of Ghent has a weekly “Veggie Day”:
The Flemish city of Ghent has designated every Thursday as “Veggiedag” — Veggie Day — calling for meat-free meals to be served in schools and public buildings, and encouraging vegetarianism among citizens by promoting vegetarian eateries and offering advice on how to follow a herbivorous diet.
(h/t Caroline, who got it from here.) If you read the article, the day is (predictably) not gaining full compliance from its meatier citizens. But as a public awareness campaign, this is a great step. Imagine if New York declared a meatless day once a week. Sure, millions of people would ignore it, but even a few thousand conscientious meat-eaters might participate. I’m thinking of the kind of consumer who has considered the ethics of their diet but lacked the drive to forgo meat entirely. I’m thinking the impact would be noticed pretty quickly.
Of course, I think it would have at least as large an effect (likely larger) if people starting avoiding corn-fed livestock and eating beef only when it was grass-fed, but until that becomes even a remote likelihood, veggie days wouldn’t be that bad of quick fix.
The headline, which got cropped out, reads, “Obama Lifts Bush’s Strict Limits on Stem Cell Research.” It’s obvious to me that the only way to celebrate any such victory for reason is with poor grammar:
Apparently Americans United for Change is now running an ad pressing Arlen Specter to vote for the bailout in Pennsylvania (via TPM, as usual). Its worth a listen – the ad plays the Limbaugh “I hope he fails” soundbite and frames the party-line House vote as Republicans voting against job creation. That’s obviously an over-simplification, but the House Republican response also strikes me as disingenuous (to the extent that response is “No more tax cuts? What happened to bipartisanship?”).
Specter is getting a fair bit of attention as the bill moves to the Senate, although this seems in part to be motivated by speculations that Senate Republicans may filibuster the bailout. This seems fairly unlikely to me, for the simple reason that a “no” vote against a bill that is certain to pass anyway comes at little present cost to a Congressperson, with the potential for substantial gain if the recession continues to the midterm elections. It’s a gamble, but one where it’s cheap to buy in. A filibuster would attract considerably more media attention than even the vote yesterday, and any of the 40 Senate Republicans who feels even a little vulnerable probably wouldn’t have the temerity. But more than that, I doubt that a Senator like John McCain, who isn’t fearing for his Senate seat, would care to create the spectacle of a filibuster when a simple “no” vote would get the point across.
President Barack Obama will direct federal regulators on Monday to move swiftly on an application by California and 13 other states to set strict automobile emissions and fuel efficiency standards, two administration officials said Sunday evening.
Somehow this has evaded me until 10 minutes ago, but tomorrow is Download Day for Firefox 3, which the good folks at Mozilla promise to be faster. If you head over there now, you can pledge to download it (which you should do whether or not you pledge) and thus help them reach their goal of most software downloads in 24 hours. They even have a nifty map showing you how many pledges per country across the world, which is (dare I say it) quite foxy.
Nicholson Baker (author of everyone’s favorite erotic novel The Fermata) has a neat piece up on the NYRB (free this week) on “The Charms of Wikipedia“. As an occasional Wikipedia contributor, I found this to be much better than a lot of the editorials that have weighed in on the debate over why Wikipedia does (or doesn’t) work. He’s better able to capture the reasons why Wikipedia garnered so much excitement at first:
It worked and grew because it tapped into the heretofore unmarshaled energies of the uncredentialed. The thesis procrastinators, the history buffs, the passionate fans of the alternate universes of Garth Nix, Robotech, Half-Life, P.G. Wodehouse, Battlestar Galactica, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Charles Dickens, or Ultraman—all those people who hoped that their years of collecting comics or reading novels or staring at TV screens hadn’t been a waste of time—would pour the fruits of their brains into Wikipedia, because Wikipedia added up to something.
This also adds new insight to Jimbo Wales’ observation (that Wikipedia is “fun and addictive”), getting at just why the often rote task of maintaining an ever-expanding knowledge source would be fun or addictive. And these in turn give us the reason why WP moved from it’s joyously undisciplined origins to the rule-governed community it’s become of late. Baker doesn’t think this is unequivocally bad, though; he makes the point nicely while discussing vandalism:
Not only does Wikipedia need its vandals—up to a point—the vandals need an orderly Wikipedia, too. Without order, their culture-jamming lacks a context.
The piece is full of curios mined from the expanses of Wikipedia, plus Baker’s own experiences fighting the deletionist effort to cut loose articles that don’t meet the standards of neutrality and notability. In doing so, Baker gets exactly right why we’re drawn to add to the digital mass.
I’ve spent the better part of this morning sifting through folders of old papers – a necessary task because I had materials from classes going back to my Bard days intermingled with articles and things I intend to read in the near-ish future. After a substantial reorganizing effort, much has been disposed of, the old is hidden away from sight, and more recent print-outs filed where I can get to them easily.
However, it also has unearthed some curiosities that I’ve been holding on to all these years. And so I bring you back to Vienna, 2004, where on one of my museum trips I thought to transcribe the inscriptions accompanying two installations. One was a manifesto by Lebbeus Woods, which thankfully is included in that Wikipedia article (which saves me the trouble of typing it up). The other is the statement by artist Donald Judd accompanying his installation of the Dubsky room. This installation was part of a series of items from the decorative arts (carpets, furniture, etc.) in collections curated by contemporary artists. Curiously, the Wikipedia article on Judd informs me he died a decade before I ever saw the room, but I suppose that’s the art world for you. Without further ado, here are his thoughts on the Dubsky room.
I was doubtful about the idea of artists making installations of earlier objects; I am still doubtful. This should be the responsibility of the curators of the objects, despite my continuous criticism of the generally artificial way in which objects are installed. To have artists make such installations is a likely way to continue devious installation. I accepted the problem as a favor to the museums and accepted as a premise for myself that I would not contradict the judgment of the curator responsible, Christian Witt-Döring. I think we did our best.
The museum’s premise, the installation’s fact, was that the Dubsky room, originally a room in a palace, had to be reconstructed in a much larger room of the museum. I was told there was no alternative. This room could be remade either in one of the corners of the exhibition room, leaving an awkward right angle for the other furniture, or it could be remade in the center of the room, leaving a symmetrical space and possibly establishing the good idea of a room within a room. I asked that this be done.
The Dubsky room is too large and awkward but placed it in the center was the right decision. This room and most of the other furniture were made in the 18th Century, for the aristocracy. Its grandeur is uncertain and therefore excessive. It’s uneasy; Chardin is not uneasy. All architecture and most installations are now uneasy. Why is Chardin simple, strong and easy?
The separate pieces of furniture are placed symmetrically, usually in pairs, usually opposite each other. A rectangular space usually determines this. The positions of the furniture were also carefully decided in regard to size, color and kind. I asked that the moulding under the ceiling of the large room be repeated around the exterior of the Dubsky room to further incorporate it into the 16th Century space made in the 19th Century and to reduce the excessive generality of its exterior. This is a small, uneasy room planted in a large, doubly uneasy room. I think it should be in the basement. But Witt-Döring and I did our best, uneasily.
A shout out to all of homies back in Massachusetts:
(We the Robots is a pretty good web comic I discovered through Google Reader’s recommendations system. Which is handy little thing, by the way.)
This is perhaps the best meta-joke I’ve come across in a while. First, read the following xkcd comic. Now go and google “died in a blogging accident“. Get it?