Category: culture

Wordcamp live music apparently not licensed under GPL

Posted on by Daniel J. McKeown

It seems that WordCamp 2007, an open source software gathering, is no refuge from intellectual property thuggery. Watch this movie as Andy Skelton fairly exudes greed as he lunges to claim and monetize other people’s recordings after what was billed on the schedule as a mere “musical interlude.” Actually, I would have included the actual song in the movie too without a second thought–but it sucked.

The behavior on display is strangely grandiose in this case (e.g. the joke about whether it’s a “trillion-dollar song” or the belief that people want to feature bad acoustic frat music on their blog), but I’m afraid that it nonetheless could have a real chilling effect on the free exchange of ideas and information about such events.

The key quote from Andy Skelton from the movie:

“I just want a piece of..of your pie!”

To which I say–never!

Wordcamp 2007 – day 1 – morning session

Posted on by Daniel J. McKeown

A series of horrid shrieks emerged from the peanut gallery as the cry went up–“The Internet is down!!” Presenter Dan Kuykendall tried bravely to joke about it–“of course the Internet is going to go down”–but the crowd assembled for WordCamp 2007 at the Swedish-American Hall was slowly giving over to fear and panic. What in the hell happened to the Internet?

Well it appears that some sort of depraved freak from off the street had busted in and wandered upstairs, and with crumbs from a scone snagged downstairs still rolling off his chin tried to rip apart the wiring tangle around the Cisco router in order to harvest its copper. I tried to sound the alarm but in the tussle was pushed into the table, and right after that the connections went down.

So fortunately no copper was stolen by the madman (only a scone or two) and as he turned to leave down the stairs I stuck a WordPress sticker onto the back of his filthy Members Only jacket– so keep an eye out. Internet connection was restored after some time, although it was clear that the staffer talking on the phone about how to fix it was no CCNA because he was still working on it for three minutes after the Internet had returned and only stopped messing with the decrepit old router when told to by an associate.

I’ll write some updates if anything else interesting happens–and if I don’t write anything else then there’s only one logical assumption about that.  Also don’t forget to check my photo album from this morning’s WordCamp on Webshots.  Here’s a photo that was snapped just before all that craziness with the Internet happened.

upper deck seat at WordCamp

The Fountain is a movie of ambition, mystery and darkness

Posted on by Daniel J. McKeown

In his first major movie, Pi, Darren Aronofsky used a cramped New York City conurbation as the backdrop to the even more cramped mind of the troubled genius protagonist. Then the brilliant Requiem for a Dream saw an expansion out to a wider cast of characters, more open spaces in Brooklyn and, in a few unpleasant scenes late in the movie, the American South. Six years on show that Aronofsky is leaving New York far behind in The Fountain.

Or is he? I seem to remember hearing about a revival of interest in hip New York circles about the “ethnobotanicals” of Central and South America mentioned early on in the movie. How exactly these jungle compounds, Amerindian culture, the Book of Genesis, pyramids and modern medicine weave together with film-making, myth, legend and mysticism must be necessarily complicated; and therefore The Fountain is an epic work of extreme ambition, mystery and darkness.

The movie stars a sullen Hugh Jackman and Rachel Weisz, who is an intense, vulnerable and magnetic anchor for a story that spends much of the time weaving together ethereal threads–the kind that seem to confuse and bother people like this reviewer writing on the-reviewer.net.

Some people find fault with Aronofsky’s ambition and intensity. But that’s what he does, and this movie is one that his fans will find more to like about than not. Here’s an assessment by Weisz as quoted by wired.com:

‘It asks the most adult question of all: How do we relate to our own mortality? But it’s still messing with you on so many levels.’