May 7, 2009
Now that I am (thankfully) done teaching until September, I have time to devour two small mountains of readings that I need to finish before I return to my manuscript, which I will be working on, I hope uber-productively, all summer long. One pile of readings deals with coding, open source, and the commons, such as Scott Rosenberg’s Dreaming in Code and David Bollier’s Viral Spiral. Another pile of reading edges toward the theoretical side of things, having to do with craft, pleasure, and humor, since it is pleasure in its many many many guises—from from the calm feeling of self-satisfaction that underlies pride in one’s craft, to the more sublime feeling of ecstatic bliss—that powers many creative sprints.
If one entertains pleasure, one must also entertain its darker side, for all of this “feel good” stuff is nonetheless often springs forth from a deep sea of passionate frustration. This seems to be the driving theme of Dreaming in Code and it is also what animates Ellen Ullman’s fictional account of pure frustration, The Bug. I am quite fond of “native” expressions of geek frustration and recently was provided with an exquisite example—a rant against the Adobe PSD format. The author of Xee, “A light-weight, fast and convenient image viewer for Mac OS X” explained his utter contempt for the Adobe PSD in the following way:
At this point, I’d like to take a moment to speak to you about the Adobe PSD format. PSD is not a good format. PSD is not even a bad format. Calling it such would be an insult to other bad formats, such as PCX or JPEG. No, PSD is an abysmal format. Having worked on this code for several weeks now, my hate for PSD has grown to a raging fire that burns with the fierce passion of a million suns. If there are two different ways of doing something, PSD will do both, in different places. It will then make up three more ways no sane human would think of, and do those too. PSD makes inconsistency an art form. Why, for instance, did it suddenly decide that *these* particular chunks should be aligned to four bytes, and that this alignement should *not* be included in the size? Other chunks in other places are either unaligned, or aligned with the alignment included in the size. Here, though, it is not included.
Were it within my power, I would gather every single copy of those specs, and launch them on a spaceship directly into the sun.
Even if this account represents unadulterated irritation, he leaves us, the reader, with nothing of the irritation, only pleasure. This aftermath of frustration is delivered through the vehicle of humor, which within the hacker context, is the cultural container that best captures the spirit of hacker pleasure or so I will be arguing. Like many humorous rants from the world of hacking (and please send me any others you know of), this text dances with liveliness; it exudes its own rhythm; it “glistens” to use Ronald Barthes’ apt phrasing from his short book “The Pleasure of Text,” which I just finished as part of my theoretical escape into the pleasure-dome.
Although there are parts of his book which are to be frank, *really* *not* *pleasurable*, partly due to obscure references to High French Theory, which elide even an academic pair of eyes, the book generally pleases. And one of the most pleasing chunks is his definition of a stereotype:
“The stereotype is the word repeated without any magic, any enthusiasm, as though it were natural, as though by some miracle this recurring words were adequate on each occasion for different reasons, as though to imitate could no longer be sensed as an imitation: an unconstrained word that claims consistency and is unaware of its own insistence”
In contrast to the stereotype, a string of words that enchants does so by slipping off the page to hit you squarely in the heart or the gut. Unfortunately, while academic writing steers clear of stereotypes, often trying to present the detailed singularity of a phenomena (even when conditioned by social forces), it does not exactly “glisten,” though there are a handful of exceptions. I think we need more texts that glisten, even if only during sections or parts of our books and articles (much like the rant helped enliven the more staid technical document).
In recent years, in large part due to the influence of free software, there has been an explosion, a move toward going open access. All of this is laudable and I fully embrace it (and have gotten into some small battles over it). But without an aesthetic politics that values pleasure in reading and writing we are doomed to obscurity anyway. A move toward making our knowledge public also required a move toward thinking about the literary aesthetics of pleasure.
April 29, 2009
Today I found out that some of my students refer to me as “Enid,” a name which has rarely been used to call my attention but now circulates almost daily to my students whenever I post a message on Blackboard. It was a little mortifying to find out as I don’t identify much with Enid, though it has always tagged quietly along with my other names.
BB, which we use for readings, our discussion forum,and email messages, spits out my legal (tax) name, which bears the full Enid Gabriella Coleman. Although I have tried, somewhat persistently, I have failed to change it to the E. Gabriella Coleman that I would rather use. While I find it hard to embrace Enid as I just don’t feel like an Enid, at least yet (and may break it out when I write fiction or when I turn 65), I have always liked having the name Enid in so far as it pays homage to my Aunt Enid whose life ended far too early, soon before I was born and from all accounts, she was one stellar woman.
My parents chose to tack it on for commemorative purposes, intending to call me Gabriella after some Italian cabaret singer my mother loved. The plan, however, was immediately foiled by my older sister who apparently blurted out something like “Biella” when she saw the scraggly “rat-like baby” (as my mom used to describe me) that was christened her younger sister.
Biella, like Gabriella, also has Italian roots: it is a beautiful town in Italty and a less than beautiful but so-ugly-it-is-kinda-cute Italian Pug.
Perhaps the lesson in all of this is to tell students about my name and finally ditch BB, which is the software equivalent to Soviet style communist housing, and move over to another platform.
Today I found out that some of my students refer to me as “Enid,” a name which has rarely been used to call my attention but now circulates almost daily to my students whenever I post a message on Blackboard. It was a little mortifying to find out as I don’t identify much with Enid, though it has always tagged quietly along with my other names.
BB, which we use for readings, our discussion forum,and email messages, spits out my legal (tax) name, which bears the full Enid Gabriella Coleman. Although I have tried, somewhat persistently, I have failed to change it to the E. Gabriella Coleman that I would rather use. While I find it hard to embrace Enid as I just don’t feel like an Enid, at least yet (and may break it out when I write fiction or when I turn 65), I have always liked having the name Enid in so far as it pays homage to my Aunt Enid whose life ended far too early, soon before I was born and from all accounts, she was one stellar woman.
My parents chose to tack it on for commemorative purposes, intending to call me Gabriella after some Italian cabaret singer my mother loved. The plan, however, was immediately foiled by my older sister who apparently blurted out something like “Biella” when she saw the scraggly “rat-like baby” (as my mom used to describe me) that was christened her younger sister.
Biella, like Gabriella, also has Italian roots: it is a beautiful town in Italty and a less than beautiful but so-ugly-it-is-kinda-cute Italian Pug.
Perhaps the lesson in all of this is to tell students about my name and finally ditch BB, which is the software equivalent to Soviet style communist housing, and move over to another platform.
April 27, 2009
April 25, 2009
So for years and years and years I assumed this photo was taken by a good friend of mine (and we sill think it may be) but we can’t totally verify if it is his as he lost all his old photos after a server hack-in.
Do you recognize this photo? Do you have photos from this Free Dmitry protest (August 2008, in front of the San Francisco Prosecutors office) that would share for an academic publication on this topic???
Help!
April 23, 2009
February 22, 2009
w00t. NYC has been chosen. I was equally excited about Boston so I did not really care about which city won out. But since it is in NYC, I will definitely be helping out and one of the first things I want to do is organize a 1/2 day trip to this sauna/spa mega-facility in Queens…
February 11, 2009
Not so long ago, I was lamenting to some Debian developer about how LONG it took for me to write stuff, of any quality at least. And aside from my own slowish pace, the academic publishing process is slow as molasses. The two together make for a deadly combo. This friend reminded me that Debian took a heck of a long time to release and at the time, this reminder actually made me feel a lot better. Well, after years of toiling, updating, bug squashing, and lots of lots of arguing, Lenny is coming out and those of us in NYC are celebrating. Though this has been circulated on the Debina-nyc list, it never hurts to circulate a little wider, especially for this event.
Attention New York City Debianistas,
The astrological confluence of 1234567890[0], the impending release of
Lenny[1], and the odd sighting of a horned mythical beast that
cryptozoologists are calling a ‘new FTP-master-assistant/slave’ being
sighted in the mist off the shores of the East River[2] will result in
all emacs users to transcend and all vim users to be transponded to
their respective motherships, which are scheduled for near-orbit on that
night.
You will only be taken if you have a sip of beer on the 13th, before
6:31:30pm at the Pacific Standard[3].
If you come late, you may suffer nano for all eternity.
Micah
ps. All nano users will be Left Behind™ to tend to the servers that we
did not bring with us on the Rapture® rickshaw.
ps. lets keep the the post-apocalyptic space editor battle that will
erupt between the S.S. Church of Emacs, and the H.R.H VIMperator
mothership for later, and drink with revelry together now.
0. `date -d ‘@1234567890′`
1. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2009/02/msg00000.html
2. http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel-announce/2009/01/msg00004.html
3. http://www.pacificstandardbrooklyn.com
February 3, 2009
So I know, I know. There are a lot of annoying memes circulating on the net/facebook/[pick your spot] and well, sometimes the best thing to do is stop the damn thing by ignoring its existence. But I have to say, I have completely, totally and absolutely have loved reading the 25 things… notes on facebook. It just provides a window into the extraordinary character that emerges from the collection of mundane events/likes/pleasures that make up people’s lives.
Reading them took me back to elementary school when and where I was an avid slam-booker. I have very fond of collecting and reading the tidbits of thoughts and information people left behind in my notebook. What also struck me about these recent 25 thingie notes is how odd or not as interesting, I think, it would be to have them recited to you over coffee or at dinner.
Now I could be wrong here but I think the list-like quality would just not fly in a conversational context. A few facts with more embellishment would work but a whole string of thoughts would just sound flat and out of place. A reminder that format does matter for engendering certain types of knowledge.
So here is my list..
1. I looked like a boy for the first three years of my life (but a cute one, I think).
2. I love dogs so much that I often think that if I had a criminal streak, I would be a dog nabber.
3. I would routinely bring home dogs from the street when I was a kid. Many of them ended up dead after being hit by cars (they liked to return to the street and this only happened to 2 of them).
4. My favorite concert was Jimmy Cliff in a parking lot. There was lots of rain and lots of weed.
5. I like have a penchant for tall men. My mom claims it was because I lacked a strong father figure in my early childhood years. Who knows if that is the case.
6. I knew the instant that I took an anthropology class I wanted to be an anthropologist. I guess I made it happen (and it was one of the few moments of clarity in life).
7. I started the first environmental club in my high school and my car was called the recycle-mobile because there were always cans in the back seat.
8. I love the ocean; swimming, snorkeling, diving, sailing, and just watching it, though the cold ocean is not always by cup of tea.
9. I had terrible insomnia for a year and slept for a good chunk of it on a couch. I like the snuggle feeling I got from sleeping against a back.
10. I am very indecisive person. It is annoying as i tend to worry a lot about whether I made the right decision.
11. I was a shy kid and barely talked until meeting my best friend in kindergarten, Yael
12. I also failed the psychological test to get into school but my mom managed to get me in anyway.
13. I often wonder if I would have been a nun if I had lived prior to 1900s to escape various domestic obligations. I think it might have been fun to be a nun.. Fun to be a nun also has a nice ring to it.
(more…)
December 31, 2008
We may not have did up my house like this OSJ one but you did a fine job —> thanks (and thanks for laughing with me over this odd dog and his portrait!)
