renege'd

i lied to you! i just got me a shiny new tumblr. newnewnew

shift

Since I rarely update about the intellectual subjects I love to blabber about, I've decided to add a little more to the topics I write about here. Mostly this will be music and shallow things like fashion and design (of all types, even maybe including furniture which I feel weird talking about but shutup i like modernist design in housewares ok.) To commemorate this moment, here's a short film with music by Copy (Portland electroliciousness).

astroturf

Oh man it's been a while. A brief little update with a nifty little widget, via FreePress. It tells you the nonprofits that aren't really grassroots, but "astroturf" and funded by corporations.

quick word-vomit about segmenting of society and marketing

AdAge is a leading advertising industry magazine. Here's a little bit about what may become a greater trend in advertising: the increasing push of the utility of a product and less specific identification of the product with an identity.
The comments section is particularly fantastic, as it contains some great critique. My personal favorite is the one that says "you lost me at 'consumer generated media'", which says to me that the commenter is probably very confused by the MySpace. The next comment provides better commentary, saying that self-segmentation (such as the type Facebook uses for those little side-bar ads) are not the death of consumer segmentation, but considerably better than any focus group could be. He also says that what "marketers need to think about is how to encourage more consumers to share their preferences with marketers – replacing privacy concerns with a desire to receive more relevant and appealing marketing communications." Ew.

two sides to every story: somali pirates

Most of what I've heard about piracy off the coast of Somalia pertains to their nautical reign of terror and hostage situations. Here are some nice alternative perspectives that do a pretty good job in not justifying all while excusing those that are excusable. There is also analysis of the surrounding political situation that has allowed (or pushed) this to happen.

You Are Being Lied To About Pirates (via Huffington Post)

'Toxic waste' behind Somali piracy (via Al Jazeera)

Piracy challenges global governance (via KenyaImagine magazine)

And, as a final link, here's the simultaneous blog post by Gabriel Teodros. It contains a video of K'Naan, a Somali rapper, talking about the situation from a more personal perspective.

Twitter, Fans, Owning Your Culture

There is a group of people on Twitter that are tweeting as characters from Mad Men, the fabulous AMC show about the advertising industry in the late 50s/early 60s. They tweet in-character, and at each other, as if communicating about work and their personal lives. At first I thought they were a sort of viral-but-not-really marketing stunt, but it turns out they're made by a group of fans that are dedicated to the show and the characters. This is fantastic, and apparently they're the talk of the tech-crowd at SXSW.

Here are a few of them:
Don Draper
Betty Draper
Peggy Olson
Roger Sterling

"Arrest of Asbo 'suicide' woman"

why give the monetary cost of her suicide attempts to the ambulance drivers?

bahahaha

I may be doing a research paper about heteronormativity and heterosexism in magazines aimed at young teen girls. This will be depressing and fun. I'll post my results here.

Speaking of creative commons, Wikipedia informs me that "[Lawrence] Lessig has known president Barack Obama since their days teaching law at the University of Chicago, and has been mentioned as a candidate to head the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates the telecommunications industry." I would flip shit, in a good way.

why.

This is possibly the dumbest news article I've ever read. I expect better from the BBC.

But I do dig the image of Putin dancing to Abba.

39Xnever

that was a short-lived project.

fabulous/39x3

in his inaugural address on Tuesday, Mr Obama emphasised the idea of respect for justice and the rights of the individual, rejecting "as false the choice between our safety and our ideals".


Maddie was another badass girl who shaped me. She, too, was the most punk rock individual I knew at the time (in early middle school.) She still makes me think of Spuds McKenzy Chuck Taylors and whimsical social criticism.

39X2

Meryl was my best friend in fifth grade. She introduced me to sarcasm and punk rock and rebellion. Well, as rebellious as a fifth grader can be. Last I met her she was a vegan with a pierced hood.

39X1

Today is the first day of a new project. See if you can guess what it is. The rest of these will be narrative most likely. I'm not sure if I will fulfill my goal. Idea stolen from here.

ugh

Dear Israel and Palestine,

Fucking stop it, guys. Seriously.

XOXO,
Courtney

Larry Lessig+Stephen Colbert

Lawrence Lessig on The Colbert Report
very funny, very pertinent

and the remixes keep coming, and even if some of them suck, they're all wonderful

drm

win!
partway, not epic. because " what we're going to end up with is a new form of DRM. The more you pay, the less DRM you get bolted onto your music."
but my balls " the record industry has been trying to level the playing field," record companies do no such thing. (plz see napster)

word vomit

Found Magazine is the illusion of intimacy combined with the thought that another person could find a glimpse into our lives as interesting as we do theirs, or even better, that millions of people could find us as interesting as we find ourselves.
(same as reality tv)
Ze Frank made an episode of The Show about it, but he is more for individualism (to be fair, so am I to an extent.) He also made an episode (and interactive project) about experimentation with aesthetics revolving around making your Myspace ugly.
According to this book I'm reading, Hello I'm Special: How Individuality Became the New Conformity by Hal Niedzviecki, it's all a symptom of our society pushing further toward "radical" individualism.
God, I made a bit of web-art about this last year...
thougts?
additions?

i wish this blog was more of a conversation...