Been ill for the last couple of days and away from the world lately, but got sent this to my inbox the other night…

The following is an e-mail from the past, composed 2 years, 2 months and 20 days ago, on September 13, 2010. It is being delivered from the past through FutureMe.org

Dear FutureMe,

You just ate a salad, spaghetti and garlic bread for dinner. Miles Davis is on the stereo. Whatcha eating tonight?

 

I also just discovered it’s actually Thursday and not Wednesday like I’d originally thought. Good times when you’re sick.

Also, a bowl of chicken soup with garlic bread.

So a few days ago, an NPR intern wrote this blog entry on being part of a generation ‘raised digitally’ and how as a music lover at the age of 21, she owns over 11,000 songs but can admit to only ever paying for 15 CDs.

This in turn has lead to a shit storm of comments from all sides through forum debates, blog posts and most prominently, this 3,800-word open letter response by academic/musician David Lowrey who argues his perception of a ‘lost morality’ that lies at the heart of internet piracy today. It’s a very eloquent piece that raises some profound notions on how today’s artists are being effected and well recommended worth a read.

Of course, this popular rebuttal had then lead to even more comments, tweets, write ups, re-responses and a interesting introspective post by musician Jonathan Coultan whose music career owes its own foundations to that of the early sharing culture of the internet. The argument over internet piracy is certainly nothing new, but what’s interesting here is that the cases on either side make for a much stronger representation of the ‘who’ that are involved in this issue; as opposed to the usual rhetoric of on is ‘file-sharing pirate’ and the other a ‘monolithic music corporation’.

Whichever sphere of thinking you consider yourself in, this is an issue that’s getting progressively heated with each iteration and… okay, so maybe online reactions to passionated internet writers is hardly a step up from the excessive lengths taken to get a file-sharing website founder arrested; but going from the gross misuse of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act to the creation of extremely unreasonable and impractical laws like SOPA and PIPA, social media has greatly simplified our online culture’s process of sharing (which is a good thing), but it appears that simplification has blurred enough of the ethical (not legal) distinction of what’s okay to share and what is really having an adverse effect on the livelyhood of the artists themselves.

Shit, guess this is what happens when I don’t update regularly; all the left over tabs and bookmarks get to be so numerous, they have to be herded into a single, over-sized aggregated post. My bad. Good stuff to read and check out though. Honest.

• Boston teacher’s incredible speech to graduating class: ‘You are NOT special’ (brilliance)
  

  In a moment of pure untamed brilliance English teacher David McCullough went off on the graduating class of 2012 at Wellesley High, critiquing modern parenting techniques by saying that children are “pampered, cosseted, doted upon, helmeted, bubble wrapped… nudged, cajoled, wheedled .. feted and fawned over and called sweetie pie.”
  (transcript here and video here)

• Being the ‘good’ kind of narcissist
• P-p-p pick up a perverted penguin
  

  Newly discovered documents from Captain Scott’s ill-fated expedition to the Antarctic have revealed their shock at the “astonishing depravity” and sexual habits of the Adelie penguins they encountered around the South Pole.

• Scientists to Use Venus Transit to Hone Alien Planet Search Techniques
  Plus: video observations from the SDO and collected photos on the Big Picture.
• Toward a Dissident Architecture?
  

  The question posed by Wang’s Pritzker selection could be articulated like this: If you provide a particularly humane or humanist built environment within the context of occasionally inhumane political or economic conditions, to what extent are you reinforcing or resisting those conditions? Are you offering a tangible alternative or a mere respite?

• The Pirate Bay evades ISP blockade with IPv6, can do it 18 quintillion more times
• How search engines will develop sentient responses?
• Radiolab: The Art and Science of Digital Shamanism
• Why Great Television Is More Like A Novel Than A Play
  

  Why do still watch plays by Euripides, born some 2,500 years ago, or Shakespeare, who is nearly 450 years old? Writer orthodoxy says it’s because the fundamental rules for drama have never changed, since they are eternal, rooted in human nature.

• Why Americans See Racism Where The French See No Problem
• Wes Anderson: Whimsical Like a Fox
  See also: his collaborator’s radio interview on how he soundtracks his movies.
• Francis Ford Coppola: On Risk, Money, Craft & Collaboration

Finally, was pointed to an upcoming Ubisoft game titled “Watch Dogs”. Not much details have been released yet, but based on this E3 trailer, it looks to be one of those rare high concept, modernist thinking games that only get produced once in a blue moon. Plus the trailer itself is a magnificently designed video.

• Neil deGrasse Tyson Presents: Manhattanhenge! (awesome)
• This book contains the first Google image result for every word in the dictionary
• As Memorial Day Nears, a Single Image That Continues to Haunt
• Governments pose greatest threat to internet, says Google’s Eric Schmidt
• Don’t Worry, These Are Not Community’s New Showrunners
• A concise personal lament on technology and books
• Facebook: Wallstreet 1, America 0

• The Oatmeal: Why Nikola Tesla was the greatest geek who ever lived
• Android Fragmentation: The many faces of a little green robot
• Straight White Male: The Lowest Difficulty Setting There Is
• Facebook Unlike and Internet Schadenfreude
• How the Professor Who Fooled Wikipedia Got Caught by Reddit

• Why politicians don’t get the internet
• Somebody please, for the love of god, fix shipping/couriers (YES!)
• George Lucas Does Something Likeable For a Change: Revenge on Rich Neighbors
  

  George Lucas’ rich neighbors don’t want him building a movie studio in their backyard. His response is the best thing he’s done in years.

• The Original Piece of Wood I Left in Your Head
  

  Wildcat pop-culture critic Perkus Tooth and Being John Malkovich director Spike Jonze met, at Tooth’s insistence, at Yonah Schimmel’s knishery on Houston Street in New York City. A small digital tape recorder was placed between them.

• 23 incredible new technologies you’ll see by 2021
• Reset Firefox – easily fix most problems