"Little Superstar"

But can they do this in Franklin County?

Franklin (County)

God I love Ohio.

Googlezon

If I'd written the post below in 2003 and turned it into a really good video, it might look something like this:

Googlezon

Vox Machina

Everyday, actually two or three times a day, particularly savvy bits of spam seep through the multiple filters between the bad guys in the Ukraine and my eyeballs. I use the Ukraine here as a proxy for all of the spam making machines in the world. My mind is but a self-reflexive series of heuristics; maybe I'll tell you more about this particular proxy in another post.

Anywho, these messages get past the filters on both the stanfordalumni servers and the gmail servers. Judging from the sheer number of messages which land directly in my spam folder and never cross my retinas, these filters generally do a pretty good job. However, particularly slippery missives seem to slide through even the tightest of machine nets, though the spamtastic patterns are easy enough for a human to catch.

First, the sender's name is always a standout. Yesterday I received messages from Bella Broussard, Connie Dougherty and Christie DuBouis. My real world mail correspondents tend not to adopt the nomenclature of burlesque stage stars. The other obvious identifiers of these messages are the wildly poetic text and the inevitable attachment which I dare not open.

For example, Bella Broussard sent the following, under the subject heading "Methane Publicity":

"He backed them out of their stalls and began harnessing. Don't put it off too long or I may not be there. Said ‘twas goin’ to blow the lighthouse out to sea, or somethin’ like that. His mental speculations were engaged with matters much more personal and intimate."

Google tells me that the sentences are mismatched pieces of text lifted from Joseph C. Lincoln's 1924 novel Rugged Water. The novel is publicly available on the Internet. I assume that someone, somewhere in the Ukraine no doubt, created a 'bot to scour the web for long passages of text which match a certain format--say dialogue or lots of commas or something and then wrote a script to tie these strings together into passages that are random and poetic enough to be indistinguishable from a legitimate human-to-human email. Attach and advert for a 419 scam or worse yet, attach some malware, and the bad guys are off to the races. Some fraction of fools will respond and the spammers make enough money to cover the cost of sending the messages and a handy profit to boot. But this has been going on for ages. What I find interesting about vox machina, the voice of the machine, is that machine-generated text is everywhere, and it’s sounding more and more human. It’s all over the ‘net, intermingled with earnest blogs, corporate marketing messages, online petitions and truly hideous Myspace pages. With time, as the programmers get smarter and the costs of producing spam, link farms, and new and as yet unimagined types of machinespeak fall lower and lower, it will be completely indistinguishable from human language.

Here's an example. Today I was doing a little research on the Yorùbá god, Changó. Again, my mind is but a self-reflexive series of heuristics. I might get back to my fascination with the Orishas another day. Anywho, I went to my favorite source of all things, Wikipedia, where the encyclopedia entries are compiled and edited by the people, for the people, in a sort of open-source epistemology of the bored and altruistic. As I was reading the Changó entry, which was of course cobbled together by a gang of at least superficially unknown who evers from where ever, I came across this phrase:

"In further apatkis Shango goes in search of Aganju, his father..."

Apatkis? What's that? I typed "define: apatkis" into Google, my other favorite source of all things, and it returned no results. Nothing. Impossible! So I kicked out to a wider search of simply "apatkis" which returned a scant 210 results. I'm morally opposed to browsing past the first page of any Google search, but the results returned on that first page were telling enough. Three of them included the phrase "In further apatkis Shango goes in search of Aganju, his father..." and the other seven spewed the wild poetics of the machine with phrases like "a 350 wedding place cards clocked and operated by its apatkis newspapers" and "Massiel reached its apatkis of 90 mph over the franco-manitoban Gran Pacific."

So here’s the trouble:

I still don’t know what “apatkis” means and my primary source for all the information in the world, outside of the infinite loop of my own mind, is both the source of the question and the answer. Moreover, both the question and the answer may in fact be the nonsensical rant of the machine or the first few words of the dawn of a new breed of intelligence. I can’t tell the difference, is Wikipedia vox populi or vox machina? Four thousand years from now when archeologists are digging through the detritus of the present era, will they be able to discern Moby Dick from the machine? Maybe the machine will be the one doing the digging!

The Power of Good

Last night I indulged in all manner of goodness. I started the evening off with Dave at farmerbrowns, a new neo-soul restaurant in the 'Loin. We split an order of fried chicken and a Carolina pulled pork sandwich. I had several cool and refreshing watermelon margaritas while Dave drank beer from a mason jar. Clearly the goodness started early. Next we headed over to Yerba Buena Center for the Arts to catch the opening of Sampling Oakland. We were each inspired to promise to put crayola to canvas as soon as possible.

Now here's where it gets really good. We left YBCA and walked around the corner to 111 Minna to the launch party for GOOD Magazine. Now I was already excited about this because for a $20 subscription to the magazine, I get 6 issues of GOOD which fits perfectly into my monosyllabic magazine strategy (Dwell, Wired, Seed, Make, and now, GOOD!) But that's not all folks! GOOD used the new math to pass along that same $20 to the charitable org of my choice. I chose Creative Commons. And the magic didn't stop there. I also gained admission to the magazine's launch party which had an open bar! How great is that? I know you're already overwhelmed with goodness, but you'll never believe who was saddled up to said open bar. None other than Al and Tipper Gore. That's right. I partied with the vice president. We chatted for a bit, and I told him about my zealot-like prophesying. He was amused and I got the sense that he'd definitely heard it all before. Good!

Earthquake!

I thought it was a dream of an earthquake that shook me from my sleep early this morning, but apparently it was the real thing. Of course, no report of an earthquake would be complete without using the word "temblor," so here you go: The 4.7 magnitude temblor rattled the Bay Area ever so slightly at 5:24am.

Check out the maps!

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Oakland from Heaven

Actually, it's Richmond California, but I like the idea of an angel's-eye view of Oaktown. I snapped this a few minutes after take off on the way to Europe last Halloween. A few seconds later and you would have been able to see my digs on the Lower East Side of Lake Merritt.

technorati tags:moblog

Blogged with Flock

Kai's walking!

Just a Little Bit of Apocalypse to Make the Medicine go Down

So here's my prediction. Gore in 2008. That's right. Al Gore. Hillary is unelectable, Barack Obama would get shot, but Gore's got a new movie in the theaters. Folks, it's gonna be Gore.


It'll go down a little something like this. The film will be the sleeper hit of the summer, March of the Penguins style. It's already getting early buzz and film festival prizes. The hopeful are rallying friends who aren't the least bit interested in climate science to see it. The press is priming the pump--just take a look at the covers of Time, Wired, and Vanity Fair. This summer the masses will begin to become atuned to the state of the climate, with a little help from the media engine.

Simultaneously, in the American southeast, some small bit of apocalypse will come crashing ashore, Katrina style, and the film will be referenced again and again. The reality of the science will become palpable to the people, finally. Gore will tell us that he told us so. And all the while, he will insist that he's not running for office. The reluctant non-politico politico will operate outside of the confines and constraints of a presidential run and in so doing, become the only electable canditate. He'll be seen as a rogue who speaks freely, a champion of the left, a new leader who will shun the mantle of the presidency precisely because he values his freedom. He'll be perceived sort of an Anti-Arnold. Unlike Das Gubernator, he'll use his celebrity to actually lead, rather than to simply win an office. Well, for a little while anyway. After a long hot heat wave of a summer and a little Class 5 pummelling, our nation will rise up and cry out and demand that an unfettered man step up and lead us out of an annhilation of our own making. Gore will heed the cry and he will stride boldly from the red carpet to the White House!

You heard it here first!

Of course, there's still the problem of the Congress and the reality of entrenched business interests that are opposed to environmental regulation. But, at least our newly elected president will be facing the right direction.

Slumber Party!

I'm having a slumber party with Dave and Jung as I type. It's AWESOME. Mac to Mac networking, wedding website creation, workplace badge swapping, and soon--karaoke. It's amazing what you can do on a weeknight in Palo Alto with Jungernaut and the Dave.

Been around the world....

And I-yi-yi-yi-yi-yi, I can't find my baby...

Ok, so I've only been around the country. You can tell I drove out from Ohio to California once--check out all those drive through states! Bryce and I had a blast. Camels and Chocolate drops the whole way!



create your own visited states map

Taping up my girl

On the way to work I blew the seam out of the crotch of my jeans. No, I don't know how. Maybe climbing onto the Amtrak required more denim dexterity than I could muster? Anywho, I just suffered the embarrassment of sitting through two meetings with an uncomfortable breeze blowing betwixt my nethers and then walking into the bathroom with a scotch tape dispenser in hand. I don't even want to imagine what my co-workers made of that. Now I'm walking around with 14 strips of tape holding my pants together. They make a crinkly noise and chafe my inner thighs when I walk. God help me if one of the strips gets loose and lands sticky-side-to-my-girl. Dang.

Octavia Butler, another great one passes

One of my favorite authors and friends of my mind, Octavia Butler, died at 58 on Friday. She was a brilliant writer, a recipient of the Nebula and Hugo awards, and the only science fiction author to be awarded a MacArthur "Genius" Award. If you haven't read her work, do. Her near-future dystopias Parable of the Sower and Parable of the Talents paint woefully possible pictures of what our world could look like if trends such as global warming, religious fundamentalism, and class division remain on their current trajectories. She utilized the genres of science fiction and fantasy to discuss race, class, gender, and the human condition, and she did so masterfully.



The one thing I saw in the news that said something about the depth of her work is this clip from the Democracy Now! website:

OCTAVIA BUTLER: "I'm going to read a verse or two. And keep in mind these were written early in the 1990s. But I think they apply forever, actually. This first one, I have a character in the books who is, well, someone who is taking the country fascist and who manages to get elected President and, who oddly enough, comes from Texas. And here is one of the things that my character is inspired to write about, this sort of situation. She says:

"Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought. To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears. To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool. To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen. To be led by a liar is to ask to be lied to. To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery.

And there's one other that I thought I should read, because I see it happening so much. I got the idea for it when I heard someone answer a political question with a political slogan. And he didn't seem to realize that he was quoting somebody. He seemed to have thought that he had a creative thought there. And I wrote this verse:

"Beware, all too often we say what we hear others say. We think what we are told that we think. We see what we are permitted to see. Worse, we see what we are told that we see. Repetition and pride are the keys to this. To hear and to see even an obvious lie again and again and again, maybe to say it almost by reflex, and then to defend it because we have said it, and at last to embrace it because we've defended it."

Read her work. You'll be better for it.

Blogligations

I promised my friend Shani that I'd write more, so here's another wee posting from yours truly. It's gotta be quick though because I gotta go see my girl Kofy and her all blackgirl rock band SISTAS IN THE PIT in like 10 minutes. Ok, I gotta go get my head bang on!

Blasted organics!

There's nothing worse than a moldy fungus. Just imagine my chagrine when I discovered that my hellof expensive organic oyster mushrooms had grown a layer of penicillin while awaiting their turn in the cookpot. Blasted organics! I just bought those mushrooms! Okay, I bought them on Wednesday and today is Saturday, so whatever.

My Saturday night supp is inspired by the stuff in my fridge: scallops, shrimp, a little bit of crab meat leftover from my Thursday night DIY sushi situation, oyster and shitake mushrooms and this little nifty little tool. I chucked the oyster mushrooms, typed the other stuff in the search box and landed here. I didn't have half the required ingredients or any past experience with Béchamel Sauce, but I have six wee tiny ramekins, so I decided to run with it. I made the Béchamel with soy milk, but I used a shitload of butter and the aforementioned creatures of the sea so I don't think this meal will appear in the Vegan Lunchbox anytime soon.

The entree is baking now; I'm pondering steamed green beans and swigging a Black Toad Distinctive Dark Ale. I'll post a picture when it's ready.



Ah, fine dining in the glow of my 15" Powerbook. Does Saturday night get better than this?

Two bridges and a pyramid

I just got back from a quick "get back in the saddle" bike ride along the Bay. If you look closely at the pic, you can see the Bay Bridge, the Golden Gate Bridge, and the pyramid of the TransAmerica building. Ok, even if you squint, you prolly can't see it, but it's there,I promise!

Apparently I'm it again.

Ok, so I tried to post this last night. It seemed to work and then it seemed to mysteriously disappear. Weird.

Tag, I'm it.

My friend Donna Jean tagged me, so I'm it. Here are my requisite lists of 3:


Three books I can read over and over:

1) Beloved by Toni Morrison.

"As soon as one strip of husk was down, the rest obeyed and the ear yielded up to him its shy rows, exposed at last. How loose the silk. How quick the jailed up flavor ran free. No matter what all your teeth and wet fingers anticipated, there was no accounting for the way that simple joy could shake you. How loose the silk. How fine and loose and free."

2) The Hidden Connections by Fritjof Capra

"Cognition . . . is the activity involved in the self-generation and self-perpetuation of living networks. In other words, cognition is the very process of life. The organizing activity of living systems, at all levels of life, is mental activity. The interactions of a living organism--plant, animal, or human--with its environment are cognitive interactions. Thus life and cognition are inseparably connected. Mind--or more accurately, mental activity--is immanent in matter at all levels of life."

3) White Boy Shuffle by Paul Beatty

"Kicking off their dime store flip-flops the two badly coiffed bullies marched through the sandbox without a flinch or a grimace. A little diaper clad boy waddled up, blew a kazoo tribunal, and heralded the dyspeptic duo: 'That my sister Fas' Betty and her bestest friend Vamp a Nigger on the Regular Veronica. They fixin' to kicks yall's ass.'"

Three places I've lived:

1) Italy (Naples)
2) Ohio (Dayton and Columbus)
2) California (San Francisco, Palo Alto, Oakland, Redwood City, Mountain View)


Three TV shows I love:

1) Lost
2) Little House on the Prairie
3) Extreme Makeover Home Edition (good lord)


Three highly regarded and recommended TV shows that I've never watched a single minute of:

1) The Office
2) Everybody Hates Chris
3) The Family Guy


Three places I've vacationed:

1) San Juan, Puerto Rico
2) Whistler, British Columbia
3) Aspen, Colorado


Three of my favorite dishes:

1) Mom's spaghetti
2) Zachary's pizza
3) I used to love al pastor burritos with no beans and extra avocado from Taqueria Cancun, but me and the al pastor don't mix it up too much these days


Three sites I visit on the daily:

1) http://www.gmail.com
2) http://donnatroka.blogspot.com
3) http://www.nytimes.com


Three places I would rather be right now:
*(with friends and family!)
1) NYC (in the Bat Cave and Harlem!)
2) Washington, DC
3) Forest Ridge


Three bloggers I am tagging:

1) bomboniera
2) tyrus
3) peaches

Back Again

It's hard to come back to this after such a long absence. Where to begin? Shall I go back to the beginning again, pick up where I left off, or kick in with the now, as though that little tear in the space-time continuum never happened?

Back to the beginning again...



Well, 2005 is long past, but everyone loves a photo retrospective, even if it is late in coming. I started the year in the company of friends and loved ones. I remember that clearly. Then things get a little hazy. I do recall having sangria just before a ferry ride to San Francisco, some time in mid May.


After a few glasses of fruited wine, we crossed the Bay in a big boat, as the moon rose and the sun begain to set. In the city we enoyed a pelaton and a merry-go-round and assorted related and unrelated merriment. We had a devil of a time getting back Oakland though--KFOG held a free concert and all of San Francisco decided to ride BART simultaneously.
















In June I headed to Pittsburgh for the annual Porter Family Reunion. Gramma Porterphine's children, grands, greats, and great great grands gathered at Penn State University, Mckeesport to remember and believe. I debuted my video documentary of the family history, as told by my eldest uncle, Cardie Jones. The video was about a half an hour long, but if you have 3 minutes and Quicktime, you can watch the first few minutes of the photo collage. Over the course of the reunion weekend two of my favorite people, Jared and Jasmine, commandeered my camera phone and composed several self-portraits. I like this one.



And what else happened in 2005? I went to Rohit's wedding. It kicked ass. There were all manner of festivies, including traditional dancing, mango ice cream, a few hours at a sports bar, and Rohit in a horse-drawn carriage. I love that guy. I think if Jesus were from India, he'd look something like Rohit on his wedding day.