The Breaking Time

Ode to apolitical scientists

I'm mostly tied up with journalism work this week, but it's a good time to highlight this classic gem from Tom Lehrer, an ode to Wernher Von Braun, patron saint of "apolitical" scientists. It's funny, and a lovely thing to keep in mind the next time someone idealizes science without all those inconvenient "limits," or, for that matter, tries to pretend that the estimable profession is something more than humans, pursuing a human method of understanding.

Magnifying a subculture (or: why are there so many assholes on television?)

Christian Slater, playing the latest iteration of Hollywood executives' ongoing love letter to themselves

Matt Seitz has a piece in Salon that hits the iceberg tip of a much larger phenomenon. Ostensibly a review of the truly atrocious-looking new comedy Breaking In, Seitz instead turns goes in a more interesting direction entirely:

If you've ever asked yourself why so many TV shows and movies glorify people who strut around growling orders and insulting underlings and barking, "Think, people! Think!" and otherwise acting like insufferable jerks, you've never spent any time in Los Angeles. Hollywood is a dream factory run mostly by and for raging narcissists with power and money. Its mass-produced dreams are overseen by people who want to be constantly reassured that they're talented, sexy, charismatic warrior-poet visionaries, and that you can absorb such invaluable knowledge by being around them that the abuse they heap on you is totally worth it. That's why the preferred dramatic configuration of ensemble TV shows is the ragtag band of eccentric professionals (read as: creative types), led by a well-dressed, middle-aged boss who reflexively needles and insults people and throws temper tantrums and sometimes puts on an expensive jacket and sunglasses, hops in his expensive car or on his expensive motorcycle, and takes off for parts unknown without warning, forcing underlings to wonder where the hell he is and talk about him nonstop until he reappears unannounced and provides them with the final piece of whatever puzzle they were trying to solve in his absence. These shows exist to kiss the asses of people who approve shows.

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The autocratic mentor-leader with no time for pleasantries is a masturbation fantasy of super-rich producers, directors, studio executives and network suits. The archetype keeps showing up on-screen because it's an easy way to stroke the ego of a boss who's not very smart or self-aware. ("See, the FBI team is headed by this handsome, mysterious, brilliant guy in his 40s with this young, hot girlfriend ..." "I like it!") Roughly a third of CBS' prime-time lineup and a lot of Fox's has a Hollywood boss surrogate as its hero, and pretty much every other network and cable channel has its own versions scattered throughout the schedule.

Despite their relative clout, the executives Seitz skewers in this piece are a relatively small subculture, ensconced in a small part of the world. However, they do have control over some entrenched, widespread media platforms.

That's an important possession, and it's why TV the world over gets blasted with magnified versions of a relatively narrow subculture. This isn't even some intentional cultural push: these particular egos, naturally enough, just think reflections of themselves are awesome.

It's not like aging Hollywood narcissists are the only ones who do this, either. Last year, Conor Friedersdorf wrote an excellent series on the cultural Tyranny of New York, and observed the following:

every week in San Francisco when the Sunday New York Times arrives at the doorstep or is picked up at the Starbucks, its readers get international coverage, national news, and a first rate national magazine, accompanied by a bunch of cultural commentary, slices of life, and other miscellany filtered through the lens of NYC, magnifying its ethos and crowding out the local equivalent.

The history of alt culture, from one perspective, is based on exactly this phenomenon, often spread further by tying to and infecting parts of the mainstream. Those parts, in turn, find sifting through exotic cultural movements useful for their own reasons.

Now, with the power of traditional media diluted, and new options available for those without a producers' means, there are some interesting possibilities that weren't easily available before. Could a subculture magnify itself intentionally?

Food for thought.

Poems for Friday: Prediction (The Future)

There are jetpacks, naturally. Art by Fred Freeman, 1966

Today's poem didn't strike me as a poem, at first. This piece by Mark Wallace is really more of a manifesto-style rant formed into epigrams. 

But it's too perfect, and too damn quotable, to pass up. Here's a brilliant stab into future-loves' jet-pack adoring heart:

In the future, we’ll plan the future better.

In the future, you can just become your TV.

In the future, your sexual partners will meet all the qualities on your checklist.

And this anxiety you’re feeling now? In the future you won’t feel it.

In the future, technology will always work, and there won’t even be weekend downtime for systems repair.

In the future, Friday night parties will never be boring.

In the future there will be less deadlines and they’ll be easier to meet.

In the future, all pollution will contain its own self-cleaning element.

In the future, if your house burns down, you’ll have another house by the time you get home.

In the future, your insurance policy will actually pay.

In the future, your friends won’t talk so constantly about everything they think they should already have.

In the future, no good deed will go unrewarded.

In the future people will like you just for who you are.

In the future, everyone will have their own sky marshal.

The Rundown: DADT, monopolies, copper thieves (and anime)

Police arrest Iraq war veteran Rob Smith during protests at the White House against the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy Nov. 15. Photo by Pablo Martinez Monsivais, AP

* “We have a gay guy [in the unit]. He’s big, he’s mean, and he kills lots of bad guys. No one cared that he was gay.” 

That one quote, from an anonymous special ops soldier interviewed as part of the Pentagon's comprehensive report on the Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy, sums up the absurdity of the whole matter in the most succinct way possible. Interestingly, the rank-and-file of the military doesn't see any problem with allowing gay and lesbian soldiers to serve openly. Funny how dealing with life or death situations tends to reveal how utterly stupid and irrelevant bigotry is. Hopefully this is DADT's nail in the coffin, and gay and lesbian soldiers will soon be able to serve openly, without bullshit.

* European Commission opens anti-trust investigation against Google European regulators seem ready to rake Google over the alleged prejudicial nature of its algorithms, ad programs and data. I'm not shocked, at all, and in the grand scheme of things, this sort of response is long overdue. 

Awhile back, I wrote about Nation vs. Corporation, and how Big Tech would likely be the next target, as the gleam of its "we'll bring you the future" message wears off, with governments and populations wanting its sudden power to be reined in. We'll see how it goes.

* AT&T offering bounties for copper thieves In Atlanta, AT&T is offering $3,000 rewards for information leading to the capture of thieves that are scavenging telephone lines for the valuable metal, as one of their recent heists left thousands without telephone service.

This is the latest evolution of an ongoing problem. Copper thieves have been a problem for years, especially in areas where the poverty rate is high. Hardware stores like Lowe's frequently hire extra security to protect from such theft.

As cultures have become more tech-based, the resources that technology guzzles become more and more valuable. Inevitably, that demand leads to such materials fetching a pretty penny, especially with growing economic insecurity. The black market ends up savaging one part of infrastructure to sell to another and I don't think bounties alone will overcome that.

* Every anime intro ever. Really. Try not to have a seizure:

Curious Search: Identity

Oh my, it's been far, far too long since I've done one of these image-binges-on-a-theme posts. So it's fitting that we start back with an excellent topic: identity. Below are a series of selected images that come up when that one, simple word's plugged into a search engine. 

Ironically enough, very few of these images had designer, artist or photographer identified. If you know anything about any of those I leave unlabeled, please let me know and I'll add 'em accordingly.

Enjoy!

A person prepares for gender reassignment surgery

Identity Cards, by Amili Gelbman

Madame Calivera's Corporate Identity Program, by Todd Schorr

Satoshi Kan, an amazing artist who tragically died today at 47, was no stranger to grappling with identity in a number of terrifying, beautiful and, in the end, utterly humane works. I'll close with the memorable opening of one of the best, Paranoia Agent.

The future's apartment has 24 rooms

An impressive creation from Hong Kong architect Gary Chang that illustrates several important ideas for simply improving the way people live. Chang's turned his shoebox apartment into a 24(!) room dwelling through a series of easily sliding walls that peel back or come forward to reveal bathrooms, bookshelves, linen closets, a bed, a kitchen and more. On top of all of that, he's used mirrors not just to give the illusion of more space, but to drastically reduce the need for electrical lighting.

This is the sort of innovation I was talking about in Durable Infection. Everyone needs a spot to live, and as cities increasingly become the dominant form of human habitation, affordable personal space is going to become an issue. So Chang's creation fulfills a basic need, and does so without requiring (the video refers to his sliding wall space as "futuristic," but it's extremely basic technology just applied in a new way) anything particularly fancy or expensive. Due to the energy saving measures, I could see it actually saving more resources than a traditional apartment.

It will be interesting to see how long it will take for an enterprising contractor or developer to start offering such apartments in other cities of the world (hello New York). I'd be interested in something similar, and I doubt I'm alone in that.

Triumph of the book

"What an astonishing thing a book is. It’s a flat object made from a tree with flexible parts on which are imprinted lots of funny dark squiggles. But one glance at it and you’re inside the mind of another person, maybe somebody dead for thousands of years. Across the millennia, an author is speaking clearly and silently inside your head, directly to you. Writing is perhaps the greatest of human inventions, binding together people who never knew each other, citizens of distant epochs. Books break the shackles of time. A book is proof that humans are capable of working magic."

-Carl Sagan

I'm an unrepentant book addict. I have more of the lovely things than places to put them, and I'm always finding and getting more. Being a book lover, however, I'm familiar with the widely held belief, held by both print enthusiasts and others, that my favorite method of transmitting knowledge is kind of a dying breed. I don't believe it personally*, but it's out there.

Recently, as a friend and I discussed the return of Futurama and various series each of us should check out ("You really need to see The Sopranos, a fascinating character study"), it occurred to me that not only are books not dying, their method has infected other media. Television, one of the primary media that was supposed to replace books as better suited to the needs of a smaller attention span starved public is now more like its old-fashioned rival than ever.

Television has increasingly embraced longer plotlines, deeper characterization, more literary themes and definite, planned endings than ever before. The best, most-talked-about shows (like The Wire) are compared to novels. Series are perceived as more permanent things, not to be forgotten about after they're cancelled, but worth watching and savoring (sometimes, as with Futurama and Family Guy, this even leads to an eventual resurrection). Meanwhile, the sitcom is being slowly garroted in the closet.

Hell, there's even a booming industry in going back and overhauling old school TV stalwarts (Battlestar Galactica, V) to make them more like literature and less like, well, old school television.

The changes haven't just affected the elements of television programming, but how it's received as well. It's less common to see people gather around for a particular episode, unless they're particularly avid or the episode a landmark of some sort. Instead people seek out series, either online or on DVD, and watch them, often several episodes at a pop. Like chapters of a damn book.

Nor is television alone, over the last decade and a half, comic books have scrambled, with varying degrees of success, to embrace literary methods. Writers have received increasing prominence while people read whole story arcs in a sitting more frequently than before and older work is sought in collected editions instead of individual issues. The very name of the medium's even considered slightly disreputable. No, no, these are now graphic novels (the term dates back to the '70s, but it's become much more common in recent years).

There's a lot of factors behind these changes, of course, but one reason for television and comics increasingly mirroring books in format and consumption is that literature is a really old medium, and so there's been far more time to find some common ways to hold people's interest, methods that continue to have staying power. As they come of age, television and comic producers seem to be learning that crafted surprises, interesting plots, realized characters and immersive worlds never go out of style as long as the human brain continues to function. Perhaps, even, audiences don't mind some bleakness and ambiguity. 

Something Sagan nailed about books is their endurance. Perhaps those dark, magical little lines will have the last laugh, after all.

* Exhibit A in reasons books ain't dead is the fact that one of the most massive media phenomenons in memory was the Harry Potter series, something that should dispel any notions that coming generations aren't willing to read long, complicated things on old-fashioned dead tree sheets, as long as they find them interesting.

The Rundown: blood and lithium

Tomorrow's gasoline?

* U.S. Discovers massive mineral wealth in Afghanistan Roughly $1 trillion worth: 

The previously unknown deposits — including huge veins of iron, copper, cobalt, gold and critical industrial metals like lithium — are so big and include so many minerals that are essential to modern industry that Afghanistan could eventually be transformed into one of the most important mining centers in the world, the United States officials believe.

There's my favorite Chinese curse, which goes "May you live in interesting times. May you attract the notice of those in high places. May you find what you are looking for." All three seem to apply in this case. Yet again a case of massive natural wealth found in a brutally fractious country. So far, much of the reaction I've heard has resembled "Oh. Shit."

Of course, the United States and many other industrial powerhouses once had massive resource reserves, but those have largely been used up and all the cheap stuff now lies underground of harsh political and geographical terrain.

Many of the devices powering the information revolution depend on lithium batteries. It will be interesting to see if technologists end up supporting bloodshed to keep that cheap, just as previous generations did to preserve cheap oil.

Of course, this cycle can't continue forever. We've got to find better ways of recycling old technology and using less resources in the new stuff.

Conor Friedersdorf argues the United States should run away from the Afghan resources, "sending someone else across the minefield in our stead. The United Nations? The World Bank? The China Mineral Corporation? Whoever it is, better that they suffer the consequences of this find than that we do."

* Chamber President wants government to pay for BP cleanup Speaking of the dangers of risky resource extraction, the head of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce plans to push for the government to bail BP out.

It's a particularly shocking display of privilege, unjustifiable under free market ideals or any other. The translation on his statement is easy: "Shut up peasant, and pay your betters."

* Culinary diplomacy with the Axis of Evil Cafe The Conflict Kitchen, started by a group of Pittsburgh artists, features food from places the U.S. is on bad terms with. The project is intended "to help people see these countries as everyday, human places that are defined by more than just their policies and government." 

The article has a particularly interesting account of a meal (and the ensuing conversation) via satellite between a group in Tehran and Pittsburgh. 

* New Soft City One of the latest augmented reality proposal. We'll see how it pans out. I'm waiting for the inevitable black market/social uses of this technology to start arising and honestly I find them more fascinating than seeing in flashier ways if the buses are running on time. 

* And Still They Cry Out On the anniversary of the Green Uprising, rebel calls still ring from Tehran rooftops. 

* Prince Poppycock at America's Got Talent. Let's change things for a sec for the less serious. This is just absolutely divine.

Is space still the place?

The next generation's view?

Recently the Cassini probe detected chemicals that could indicate life on Titan, prompting renewed speculation about what exactly space travel means to our current world, especially as a lander will be needed to confirm if some form of utterly exotic life exists on Saturn's largest moon.

That, of course, brings to attention the current crumbling state of just about every space program out there, especially that of the United States. It's hard to imagine that the assumption that we would increasingly explore — and eventually live in — space used to be widely-held.

A lot has changed since the moon landing. The economy got shakier, the Cold War wound down and perhaps most of all, the novel majesty wore off as we realized exactly how difficult, bloody and expensive it was to actually tackle the void.

It's also worth mentioning that Sci-fi, the genre that had acted as a cultural spearhead of the space race, got much bleaker and more cynical about the whole effort.

The result is that, while most still think of the future primarily in technological terms, it's not exploring space, but communication devices and various forms of physical augmentation. Transhumanists are, on a lot of levels, the descendants of the space nuts of yesteryear, projecting out today's technology to a point of mythical transcendence (and just as full of bullshit, but that's another story).

However, there's still hope. The costs of space programs were overstated in the first place, and don't seem so bad compared to bailouts and environmental cleanup. Little discoveries, like the possibility of life on Titan, remind us of how vast and strange a universe is waiting out there, and what opportunities it holds. The desire to be part of a grand endeavor has not faded from humanity. If anything, it seems to be slowly building as our current cultures seem shakier. Perhaps space will soon be the place again.

Perhaps, also, we didn't exactly realize what we were in for when we all too accurately dubbed it "the final frontier." Frontiers are messy, dangerous things, full of false starts and unintended consequences, not to mention horrifically high body counts. Yet somehow we end up going towards them anyway and succeed in part because we have no idea what we're getting into.

Plus, not every country's vision evolved in the same way. One notable feature of the anime that's rapidly infected Western culture over the past 15 years is that, even in the bleak stuff, humanity gets to space (though Japan's tech research is more concentrated on another obsession: robots).

So, it's fitting to end with something I played here before, a long time ago: an interesting remix of anime space visions. Watch it and try not to smile at the wide-eyed, earnest determination.

The hippies are loose

An excerpt from Harry Reasoner's 1967 documentary on hippies. Posted because it's an interesting look at how a social movement is viewed as utterly strange and full of portent at the time of its inception. Nowadays, however, hippies are viewed as one among many subcultures, and not very much threat to the mainstream (and my how that definition has changed) at all.

Food for thought, certainly.

(via Andrew Sullivan)