August 2009
11 posts
Shame, Yale.
Yale University Press won’t be publishing the images of those Islamic cartoon caricatures in its book about said Islamic cartoon caricatures, because its advisors advised that bombs might go off somewhere, at sometime, by someone.
That an academic publishing would act so unacademically is depressing. But censoring itself to prevent imagined violence only validates extremist methods. For...
It's on: Open Book Alliance versus Google
In response to the Google Book Search Settlement, a bunch of party-poopers are forming the Open Book Alliance, which opposes Google’s and anyone else’s book digitization process unless it is: “undertaken in the open, grounded in sound public policy, and mindful of the need to promote long-term benefits for consumers rather than isolated commercial interests.”
Here’s...
Should manga be worthy of its own museum?
Of course it should. If it has cultural and artistic significance, it’s probably worth keeping around. The Democratic Party of Japan doesn’t agree:
The DPJ strongly urged Prime Minister Taro Aso, who is known as a big fan of manga, not to build the facility aimed at collecting and exhibiting manga and animated films.
Although funding for the project gained Diet approval as...
What should Shakespeare sound like?
John Bell on ‘proper’ Shakespearean accents:
“As long as our actors are taught to exploit the timbre and range of their voices, to experiment with their emotive power, to employ clear diction and sharp articulation, accent is no consideration. We are speaking in our own country to our own audience. Until we are comfortable with our own voice, we can never own the material, be...
Google to grow into a tiger, eat our culture
Lawrence Lessig’s rundown of the Google Book Search Settlement is perhaps the best articulation of the ‘against’ position I’ve seen. He urges us not to look at Google as a kitten, but rather a tiger cub that can’t help but grow into a vicious man-eater.
In particular, Lessig talks about how the Settlement changes the print-based ‘ecology’ of ‘free...
Authors, say 'no' to Google ... or 'yes'
Panic, confusion, fear … that’s what happens when you mash together Google, the centuries-old book publishing industry, and one of the most complicated legal settlements in the past 30 years.
In this round, the authors get their chance to be confused. Should they opt in or opt out?
William Morris says they should opt out of the settlement:
“Now they’ve got this license to sell...
German Jews support 'scholarly' Mein Kampf
Stephan Kramer from Germany’s Central Council of Jews says:
“It makes sense and is important to publish an edition of Mein Kampf with an academic commentary,” Mr Kramer said. “A historically critical edition needs to be prepared today to prevent neo-Nazis profiting from it.”
The book, which has been banned in Germany for more than 60 years, goes out of...
On the new Tron movie
I’ll just come right out and say it: Tron is one my favourite movies.
It’s not great by any standard measure, but it had one attribute that made it stand out: the simulation. Visually, Tron was exceptionally well realised. It was beautiful, unique, considered, and somehow understandable. It successfully conveyed a vision for such an odd, outlandish (and cheesy) scenario, and I walked...
Age of Genetics
I’m an enormous fan of genetics. Perhaps dangerously so. That’s why I spent most of this evening swimming through Edge.org’s Church & Venter fest.
NYT says:
In roughly six hours of lectures both scientists tried to convey how the world will be changed by the ability to routinely read genetic sequences into computing systems and then store, replicate, alter and insert...
