Re-Launch in T-Minus…

I’ve been fascinated since a young age with space travel. All of the logistics and challenges involved are infinitely important when dealing with the vastness of space and its vacuum. One of those challenges involves the physics of space travel, which consists of everything Newton worked out (and some beyond) with a solid-state booster rocket strapped to it. Just to leave the atmosphere requires an enormous amount of energy, and that’s only to reach orbit. Earth’s gravity still has a grasp up there, though it’s at least more tenuous than its grip down here.

Maintaining any sort of presence on-line feels like it requires a similar amount of energy. Every time that a blog, webcomic, or podcast that I enjoy takes a hiatus, I always hope they’ll come back, instead of fading away with lost momentum. I’d built up an unsteady orbit with a few regular postings, but life events caused that orbit to deteriorate to the point where a re-launch would be required. I’ll try not to belabour the space metaphor any further, but it’s harder to build up momentum than it is to maintain it, and I certainly lost that momentum over the last months since the previous post (fittingly, it was also regarding space travel).

Without delving into self-pitying autobiography, the last summer could be described as a lot of stressful situations that always seemed to end better than they started. Inside of all of these events, though, I lost the habit of blogging, the habit having been replaced with things that needed doing right now, or with desiring a rest after a long period without a break.

I’ve been developing a few new pieces, and I’ve noticed a few things when I’ve been passively surfing on the web, so I should have enough material to bring back the tenuous orbit I’d maintained. The next step will be plotting where to go from there…

Take The Second Step

Waxing Gibbous Moon by Kevin

Today was the anniversary of the moonwalk. An act of ultimate human hubris. An act that we only do because we can, or as JFK said, because it is hard, not easy. And we need to keep doing it.

I heard the original moon-walkers (pre-Jackson) calling for missions to Mars. And though it seems like there are so many things we need to take care of on Earth, it also seems like a goal beyond our world might be a way to unify it.

What I love about space exploration is the audaciousness tempered with caution and detail. The most forbidding environment, that we do for the doing, but with a plan.

Why does science fiction go into space? Because that’s the only place spacious enough for our ideas.

Share the Power

So, I’m lucky enough to know quite a few talented people, whom I get to get consider friends and associates. A lot of them blog, or have websites. Normally, I would just link to their addresses on the sidebar, but I figured I could do better, and take a bit of time to describe what makes their webspaces interesting…

The best kind of use of the internet is in not just creating links, but making those links have at least some point, some context. If I’m going to send you somewhere else on the web, I owe it to you to at least mention why.

So, to begin, and in no particular order at all, other than whatever order my current Firefox tabs happen to be in:

Nick. One of the members of Vicious Ambitious, and probably who most earns the latter word of that group. He has such a perfect blend of ambition and passion, and he only ever wants to become better at what he loves, which is comics and storytelling. I’ve worked on one story with him, and I’m looking forward to doing more. He’s also got great taste in books.

Fiona. Much of the art that occurs in mainstream comics these days comes from a similar cloth; the superhero art-fathers of the past. Kirby, Kane, Romita, (a host of others I’m doing a disservice by not remembering) and so their children, the artists of today, have styles that speak to those pasts. Fiona’s art shows a sense of style, an awareness of body language, and a quality of storytelling that is great comics, and is all her own.

Andrew. Andrew is a great writer of comics who finds a way to personally connect to every work of his that I’ve read. A lot of comics end up being more focused on the concept then the characters, and Andrew’s work never does that. His dialogue will replay in my head after reading, like many of the best writing.  (His blog is part biography, part rant, and part observation. With a dark sense of humour, I find myself always ready to follow where he’s leading.)

Anton. One of my fellow University of Calgary alum, and a fellow theatre artist around town here, Anton’s blog is full of exactly the same fun and thought-fullness Anton brings to a real-live conversation.  He’s also the person whose note inspired my Un-Facebooking post awhile back.

Thunderfist Productions. I’ve only met this crew recently, but took a shine to them immediately. A sense of humour, passion, and thorough good taste, these are guys that I’m looking forward to getting to know better.

The Waterworks. This is the blog and web presence of Scott Dutton, one of the friends who’s known me the longest. Scott is an extremely talented art director, designer,  illustrator, and someone who has also done some damn fine comics. Scott’s attention to craft and skill consistently push me to up my game in my own work.

Attoboy. The webspace of one Derek Mah, who is many things. An illustrator, web impresario/raconteur and basically someone who seems to have a thoughtful view on any subject I put to him. Often playful as well as interesting, it’s usually worth paying attention to what he’s got going on.

George Bailey Sees The World! This is a travel blog written by Dave Gagnier, who it turned out shares a common friend with me. We had probably known each other for almost a year before we discovered the connection. He’s currently teaching in Asia, and besides posting pictures, often writes thoughtful peices of the observations of the one taking the pictures.

I’ll leave it there for now; but this post will probably have a sequel in a month or so. I’m already drawing up that list; but if you feel you were missed, write me and let me know!

Un – Facebooking

Imagine seeing all your friends at once: photo by Cаvin 〄 at Flickr

My friend Anton (who blogs here)posted a note on Facebook, as a prelude to leaving it entirely. It’s written with feeling and concern, of having lost something due to how Facebook operates. His opinions felt like a very timely (and probably shared) feeling about Facebook specifically, and social networking in general. I felt the need to share that, and to react to it. His main points are a loss of privacy and control of our own information, how that information is perceived, the inherent devaluing of that privacy (and maybe the information as well) by sharing it, and the likewise devaluing of those we call friends, when the interaction only consists of short messages instead of longer conversations and visits.

I see his point. I also think it’s too late.

Facebook is already ubiquitous for most of it’s users; we check it with the same regularity as their e-mail. We arrange gatherings and meetups, post pictures of recent events, share opinions (such as this note) and play games. On top of this, Facebook keeps bringing new applications under it’s umbrella, and as it does, there will be less reason to go elsewhere… unless you’re following a link someone posted on Facebook.

I don’t expect Facebook to last forever. In the Darwinian cyberscape, I expect it will last until the next social networking program renders it obsolete. (For some, this has already happened in the form of Twitter.) The style of networking and socializing, though, will become even more of the same. More sharing, more connections, more contacts, and more visibility. Now that people have it, they won’t let it be taken away; this genie is out of the bottle and can’t be put back. The only reaction is to adapt to it.

Facebook is still under your control; some of the more annoying or repetitive updates can be turned off or ignored. The problems of not connecting to someone, or in letting your interactions become small, are not evils of Facebook. How it is being seen is up to the user. It’s their right and responsibility to be aware, of having let that word or image go out into the digital world when posting.  When you’ve got many people on your contacts list, it requires a new sort of discipline to focus on just one person, write them a longer message, or make the time to see them in person. I will agree that Facebook makes that very difficult, and makes it very easy to passively watch the updates roll in. But I can’t blame my mouse for clicking the homepage button…

Social networking programs demand a new set of social skills. A savvy awareness of how your profile update can be read, or remembering that writing on someone’s wall is a public act, whereas a message is a private one. A deeper reading or filtering of what other people are writing on their own updates, trying to get context from snippets of conversations over-’heard’ through walls. These kinds of skills are going to be mandatory learning for some of us, and an intuitive understanding for others. It’s our right and responsibility to be aware, of  letting that word or image go out into the digital world when posting.

I’ll agree that Facebook possibly lowers the stock of the word ‘friend.’ There are many people I’ve added that I’ve only met in person once. The other side of this are the connections that are made, friendships that are fostered on Facebook conversations, relationships that might not have existed otherwise. The friends of friends can mean that you’ll meet someone you never would have spoken to, only because you’ve both arrived at the same event, invited through Facebook, and the somewhat youthful desire to define oneself by your standing in society. I would prefer the word ‘friend’ be changed to something like ‘contact,’ but part of this has to do with the college-themed origins of Facebook itself.

I’m content to embrace a wide definition of what I consider a friend, from those I’ve known for years and who know me well, to someone I had a great conversation with at a party. It’s those unpredictable connections that are actually the greatest strength of social networking programs. I’m not sure I’d want to lose the synchronicity and beautiful coincidence that Facebook can create. (Another friend of mine, Paula, seems to have perfected a kind of Facebook-status-update-poetry, by turns funny or fascinating. Even when we don’t have a chance to visit, I welcome this tiny dose of friendship from her to all of us, whenever it comes.)

As an example of the value of these random connections, I have made a recent connection with my sisters in Edmonton. That connection was made by my sister Katie with one of the coolest messages I’ve ever got, Facebook or otherwise: “hello jason. I believe that I am your sister.”  (I’m was raised an only child, so I was fairly thunderstruck to get a message like this.) It’s possible that we might have connected some other way, but Facebook made it very easy, and easy to keep connected across the vast distance of Calgary to Edmonton.

Facebook and how it’s used certainly changes how we deal with people in our lives. The sphere of influence we have, and the speed that it spreads, is something that we need to learn to get used to. For those of us in the arts, it’s practically mandatory as a way of getting the word out about a show or event.

Lastly, removing an emerging technology doesn’t necessarily mean the return of what it replaced. Getting rid of Facebook doesn’t mean that your connections to people become deeper or more meaningful, the same way that getting rid of your cell phone and land line won’t mean you’ll write more snail-mail letters.

I’ve invited Anton to respond to this in the comments; feel free to do the same. Or, you know, comment the note on Facebook…

(Anton’s post follows below.)

Goodbye Facebook. Please read this.

Share

Hi.
I wanted to explain myself quick before I go.
This sudden disillusionment with Facebook, and by extension all social networking tools (like Twitter) is because the complete and total disregard of privacy. And I’m not talking at all about these ideas linking Facebook to the CIA and other intelligence organizations. Nor am I particularly worried that anything we post on this site becomes property of Facebook, pictures, stories, notes, and the results of those awful quizzes.
Social networking tools share everything with everyone. I am awed by how the notion of privacy is skewed by these sites. There is such a false sense of privacy on these kind of sites. They broadcast our minute thoughts and feelings to a legion of seemingly faceless followers. Indeed there are ways of policing our profiles, making only certain things visible to certain people. And I encourage anyone deciding to remain posted here to meticulously look at your privacy settings and make sure you know who is able to see what. But here are the dangers as I see them: status changes, relationship status updates, etc. bare you in ways you can’t expect. No one knows from where the comments spring from, be they in sarcasm, anger, jest, or honesty. A simple comment can be misconstrued by a friend or colleague; a comment intended in jest only can be seen as hurtful or even slanderous.
Our privacy is not a commodity. It deserves more of our respect. It deserves to be spent with those we choose. I would like to see a move towards a much more human way of communication. To have real friends and to cultivate those relationships. Take back the word “friend” and see it for what it is. A friend is not someone you knew once but don’t talk to anymore. A friend is not someone you add. A friend is not someone you only keep tabs on during 15 minutes of downtime at work or before bed.
Here is a quick update for you: I will be leaving for Europe on July 18 to return August 18. I may reactivate my account at that time. I need to see just how much this site has affected how I keep in touch with the world. I really do not want Facebook to have been the only means of communication, and I do not want to lose contact with some wonderful people I have found here. My email is ******@***. My phone number is ***-***-****. My Skype ID is ***. I will answer every email and call and I look forward to hearing from you and not losing touch.
Please take a moment to consider how Facebook and other social networking tools affect your life. If they enrich it, I am very happy. But consider this: if you take the time you spend on these sites and use it to develop the relationships to the friends and family in your life, you might be so much happier for it. Use your privacy wisely, and spend it on/with the people that matter.
Send me your email addresses and phone numbers!! And tell everyone I know to do the same. I’ve relied on this too long and probably don’t have them. Terrible. And spread the word if you feel it should be spread.
Peace.
Anton.

Big Apple Bound

I’m typing this the day before I hop on a plane for New York. It’s my first time going to the States, and it’s also the first time I’ve visited the other coast of North America. So needless to say, I’m excited. It’s the city of stories; so many comics, novels and movie set themselves there, that I feel like I’m going to walk through someone else’s narrative…

We mythologize, romanticize, idealize or demonize this city; I’m hard pressed to think of a city with more depth or status in North America. (Cities like Montreal might have history, but few have the national or international clout.) Being in theatre, New York seems to be one of the few Meccas for the art form. It’s also where movie stars go to become legitimate stage actors. Most of the American literature I enjoy comes from New York in setting or it’s author… Thomas Pynchon or Paul Auster, for example.  Some of the most famous buildings, galleries and museums live here as well. For someone coming from a land of oil and prairie, this is where culture seems to live without battling for every breath.

It’s also the home of where true adult understanding began for me, where reality came home despite being the city of dreams. 9/11 was an event that brought me from the period of hope and youthful optimism to a world where bad things can happen, and the good guys don’t always win. Couple that with a disastrous presidency launched by the event, and 9/11 becomes the defining moment of my adult life.

I’m looking forward to getting the pavement of story city beneath my feet, soaking in the backdrop of Spider-Man and Daredevil, but I’m also waiting to see the site where a big slice of my personal history began.

Coming soon: reports from the trip!

Shadowtheft, or Holding Your Telepresence Hostage…

I think this is fascinating. The link below is itself a link of a story, but the germ of it is that someone hacked into a Facebook account, and then pretended to be that person, asking people on his friend’s list for money. Not very subtle, or likely to work; most of my friends would rarely ask me for money, and if they did, it’s not usually going to come across on Facebook.

But what captures my attention are the sci-fi implications here. We join more and more social networking sites and use more programs that connect to them. The only people in a position to see us all the time are our families and co-workers. I’ve lately only got time to see friends every few weeks, if that. So if someone pretends to be me, and does a good job, those that don’t get the daily dose of myself will never know who they were talking to.

I’m not even sure how a scam artist could make anything out of this, but it makes you wonder… how much would you pay to get your Facebook-self back from kidnappers?

Kidnapped on Facebook | Beyond the Beyond from Wired.com

Each One Is A Story

What I like about these ideas is the kind of world that you imagine them creating.

(I’ve been working on one based the last point for a while now.)

IBM Reveals Five Innovations That Will Change Our Lives in the Next Five Years
– Energy saving solar technology will be built into asphalt, paint and windows
– You will have a crystal ball for your health
– You will talk to the Web . . . and the Web will talk back
– You will have your own digital shopping assistants
– Forgetting will become a distant memory

Of course, there is always the cynical side of this sort of futurism; I wonder what percentage of the world’s population will be able to take advantage of these?

Not-So-Secret Pirate Maps

(By the way, we’re not talking about the kinds of pirates that watch TV shows or movies downloaded illegally. Which is to say, most everybody you know. This is the actual ship-boarding, hostage-taking, booty-grabbing pirates, perhaps with less of the costumes we’ve come to associate with the term!)

The links below indicate internet map-tracking of recent pirate activity. I’d be interested in applying history to this, and seeing how similar the map is to what have been historically persistent locales for oceanic crime. It’s finding information like this that I find so fascinating; it’s taking what the internet can do and applying it to actual events. Finding patterns.

(The other side of the coin is that the pirates, if they are web-savvy at all, have access to these same maps. Not to mention making their own, non-public maps to help organize their hijacking all the better.)

The other part of this is that despite the seeming high-tech future we live in, there are elements of world consumption that are tied to practical problems that don’t go away with being connected to the Web. In particular, geography. Oceans still need to be crossed with things that one side has and the other needs. Ditto for mountains, deserts, or any other geographical obstacle that needs to be overcome. Food for thought when so many people find Web 2.0 as the center of their day, for work or pleasure.

The major news stories these days seem to be about the Somali pirates, or at least the attacks coming from that area. The maps are pretty packed in that area. I’m getting fascinated with this topic lately; has it been going on for a while, and just a hot news story recently, or has something changed? I’m going to try to do some more digging. I’ll probably be posting here if I find anything, so stay tuned!

ICC 2009 Live Pirate Map

BLDGBLOG: Piracy, Live at Sea

(I’ve left alone any sarcastic remarks about the Pirates series of movies, feel free to make your own!)

The Near Miss of Watchmen

The Watchmen movie represents the best failed adaptation of Alan Moore’s work so far, and in the context of the difficulty of getting it made, and working at adapting it, a qualified success.

This movie had the strange position of being an extremely-hyped movie full of characters no one has ever heard of. Inside the interior landscape of comics, Watchmen was our Citizen Kane, the masterwork that innovated or perfected comics as an artform. There was no way they would fit everything into a movie, and this was something I was prepared to accept. My concern was if they could match the tenor and complexity of the ideas from the comic. The answer? Kinda.

There was a lot to like in the movie. Not unlike 300, Zach Snyder was using the comic seemingly as a storyboard. The visuals were compelling, and often delightfully eighties. Dr. Manhattan, and his abilities, are realized in a way that can be said to help evoke his character; as he makes objects levitate around him, in a perfectly synchronized waltz of machinery or clothing, his inhumanity and detachment from these very events help sell the disconnection from society that is central to the story. Rorschach’s portrayal was also close to the comic, showing the kind of intelligence and fearsome single-mindedness that such a vigilante career would demand. The other characters are on a spectrum of proximity from their source material. In all of this, we saw a love and partial understanding of what made Watchmen important, and what made it work. A morally ambiguous ending, complex human relationships and a political atmosphere that most of today’s moviegoers wouldn’t remember were communicated clearly.

That said, there is a fundamental disconnection between source and film. Part of the inspiration of the original comic was to bring reality to spandex. Alan Moore loves his characters; he writes them too well and too honestly to do use them as foils for mocking something else. But this reality is stressed; other than Dr. Manhattan, everyone is completely human, having no abilities that would be considered super-powered. In comparison, most of the main characters are jazzed-up in the movie. They punch through walls, throw knives with unerring accuracy, make leaps or throw their enemies farther than human muscles allow. I don’t know if this was because as a director, Snyder wanted to increase the excitement of the action, or if this was a subtlety that was fundamental in my enjoyment in the book, but not something that Snyder realized or cared about. If they were in tights, they must have been at least somewhat super, right?

This would be my major problem with the film; it couldn’t dare to be subtle. Though I was happy to see the film clearly set in the eighties, the blaringly loud music from that era, rather than providing counterpoint to certain scenes, instead seemed comedically overdone. Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah during a sex scene made me laugh out loud at what could have been a tender moment. Many of the famous lines in the comic are said, but they are delivered in what seems like a stab for coolness, ending up shy of the grandeur or pathos that was clear in the writing of the comic.

The experience of watching this movie was one of constantly being relieved or annoyed at different choices. As a movie, it seems to stand on it’s own. People enjoyed it and continue to talk about it. I applaud the creators for having the bravery of making it as close as they did, while at the same time being disappointed by the potential lost in what they chose to change. If Snyder had duplicated the psychology of the characters to the same extent that he had duplicated panels from the book, and had the bravery to let the characters be depressingly human, we might have been struck by more than the ending. We might have taken a closer look at the heroes we let entertain us.

Internet Helps Earn Its Keep

When I came across this video, I was fascinated with the potential that it shows. Give it a watch, and then come right back.

Iran: A Nation Of Bloggers

(in case you didn’t watch: the throughline is that the young and alternative of Iran are using blogs as a way to communicate and share things that their current social and political structures don’t approve.)

The Internet is already a dominant method of communication for many. Between Facebook, Twitter, or the host of other social networking or instant messaging systems, the strengthening of bonds between the people you (probably) already know has been cemented. Other information-based industries, like newsgathering or entertainment, are starting to embrace the concept of what digital distribution can mean.

But the dream of communicating with people across the world? More like sending a message through the internet to someone across the hall, scheduling the time to go see a movie. In a large part, we talk to people we already know, or who we know are ‘like’ us. Politically, ideologically, or even in terms of preference for entertainment. Most of the arguments and flamewars on messageboards and web groups are friction within a group of people already under one banner.

This ‘nation of bloggers’, speaking to each other and the world, is a glimmering of the ability to reach beyond. As we start interconnecting across the world, we are forced to start considering that problems affecting people somewhere else can affect us, too. It also shows that the hardest thing to control is thought. Despire the violence and restrictions placed on them, these bloggers communicate in an act of bravery and liberation. In the current global economic crisis, the worst thing we could do is ignore the voices of others.

What kinds of decisions would we make if we knew someone in the midst of a war zone or a riot, someone whose life we’d been following and sharing? How would we feel if suddenly they stopped appearing in your Facebook?

(Ultimately, all of this idealism is undermined by the fact that the video doesn’t actually provide any links to prominent Iranian blogs. But I’ll trust your powers of Google to track a few down.)