Virtuality Theorists Nice bunch of links by Gene R. Thursby, Associate Professor, University of Florida.
Hammett
While at City Lights I got drawn into Dashiell Hammett because of the local colour. On the plane home I read The Glass Key, quite fun. Apparently the basis for the Cohen’s Miller’s Crossing (1990). The original movie: The Glass Key, (1942), sounds good, but not available in the store here. Nice review of it by Alexander Walker
I almost cry when I see and hear the vanished virtues of the old-style Hollywood thriller: terseness, tautness, a laconic attitude to life, but also a commitment to the values that make it worth living and not just killing for.
This bio: Dashiell Hammett [1894-1961] is useful. The man was persecuted in the McCarthy era. Here is a pic I found:
I get onto a roll, I now have a video out: Hammett (1982) directed by Wim Wenders. Perhaps more on that later.
Later: It was awful!
Yoko Ono, Susan Sontag, Nelson Mandela
85247240
later…
Wedding Trip
I did say I’d keep a travelogue here, and we are on our way,but no, I am keeping this more psyber. However I do have a weblog, more private, and will send you the URL if you like, just email me. This does look like the last post here for a few days though as we travel up the Californian coast.
Chinese Calligraphy
The evaluation of calligraphy thus clearly had an obvious social dimension, but it also had an important natural dimension that should not be overlooked. For example, early critics and connoisseurs often likened its expressive power to elements of the natural world, comparing the movement of the brush to the force of a boulder plummeting down a hillside or to the gracefulness of the fleeting patterns left on the surface of a pond by swimming geese. Writing also would frequently be described in physiological terms that invoked the “bones,” “muscles,” and “flesh” of a line. In short, while calligraphy involves the Confucian emphasis on the social, this cannot be separated from a more Daoist emphasis on the workings of nature.
Found this as part of my reflection about writing on a computer.
Understanding Internet – Extension of Media
http://home.netvigator.com/~kwongkf/4070pg01.htm
For some reason this is the only way this url will go into blogger? What’s going on here? See the earlier post about this essay.
Greek Mythology
“Let us first make an announcement to the gods, saying that we are not going to investigate about them, for we do not claim to be able to do that.” [Socrates, 469-399 BC. Plato, Cratylus
A lot more good quotes to humble an aspiring psychological writer on the same page. Looks like a good site.
Laws of Media
Laws of Media By Eric & Marshall McLuhan
The McLuhans suggest (rightly, in my view) that every artifact or medium does four things: It enables something new, it obsoletes something, it rekindles something from the past, and it sets the stage for its own reversal to something new when pushed to the limit. If we understand each of these four attributes (or laws of media) we have a tool that can be applied to the development of our understanding of any new technology we encounter.