Michael Hanscom

Enthusiastic ambivert. Geeky, liberal, friendly, curious, hopepunk; trying to be a good person. (he/him)

Neverland

by

Ooooh…I’m all sorts of excited about this: Neverland, a modern retelling of Peter Pan.

Neverland is [Damion Dietz] updated take exploring that thesis, with the Lost Boys a group of urban punks, Tinkerbell a single parent, Tiger Lilly a drag queen and Hook a sadomasochistic fury out to destroy all the beauty he envies.

…it works both as a fable and on straightforwardly realistic terms as well — and he’s not afraid to explore the darker implications of Peter’s refusal to accept adult responsibility and Captain Hook’s obsession with his own lost youth and beauty.

…Neverland seems like an appropriate way to celebrate the centenary of a book that never grows old. It opens up the book to newer dimensions, not to mention new audiences. Adults who remember the story only vaguely will be induced to pick up the book again, to check how the metaphors line up with the events in the book, to see whether they can see those pale colors when they close their eyes.

— from various reviews on the Neverland press page

(via Wil)

Darwinian Poetry

by

First off, a disclaimer: in general, poetry is just not my thing. The only poet I’ve ever really enjoyed reading is e. e. cummings, very rarely has any other poetry caught my eye.

That said, the Darwinian Poetry project that Chris Boese mentioned caught my eye, and sounds like a really fun little experiment. So, what’s Darwinian Poetry?

Ok, here’s the idea: starting with a whole bunch (specifically 1,000) randomly generated groups of words (our “poems”), we are going to subject them to a form of natural selection, killing off the “bad” ones and breeding the “good” ones with each other. If enough generations go by, and if the gene pool is rich enough, we should eventually start to see interesting poems emerge.

The cool part is that YOU are the arbiter of what constitutes “good” and “bad” poetry. Once you start, you will be presented with two poems. In all likelihood they will both be abysmal pieces of nonsensical garbage. That’s ok. All you have to do is read them both and pick the one you find more appealing, for whatever reason. Your decision might be based on a single word that you happen to like. It doesn’t matter. Just pick whichever one strikes your fancy.

Once you choose a poem, your vote will be recorded and two more poems will appear. Keep doing this for as long as you like, and definitely come back frequently.

Over time the poems picked by you, and I hope by thousands of other people, will interbreed and more and more interesting poems will emerge. It could take a while. Weeks…months…I don’t know. It all depends on how many people participate, and how often.

The funny thing is, after clicking through a few, I’ve seen some that are entirely nonsensical, and others that rank right up there with some of the “official” poetry I’ve read.

But then, given my aforementioned views on poetry, that may not be saying much. ;)

The Blogger Voter List

by

Mike Walsh, who inspired this recent post of mine, is starting to track the Blogger Voter List. He’s looking to keep a list of bloggers who, in essence, put their money where their mouth is, and vote as well as rant.

Remember, you can blog all you want about politicians and political issues but if you don’t vote, it doesn’t matter. And politicians only listen to registered voters. So register to vote, if you haven’t already, and then register on “The Blogger Voter List” so politicians and the people who manage political campaigns realize that bloggers (and people who read blogs) are a new force to be reckoned with.

He’s also looking for somone with LAMP (Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP) experience to assist in coding a site to track this, so it doesn’t have to remain an updated-by-hand listing. I wish my knowledge were up to par, but unfortunately, that’s just not the case. Anyone else feel like stepping up to the plate?

Wimoweh

by

This is great — Kookaburra pointed to a fascinating article about the origins and history of “Wimoweh” (more popularly known as “The Lion Sleeps Tonight”) called Where does the lion sleep tonight? that I’ve been browsing off and on for the past hour in breaks between jobs. Lots of neat tidbits in the article.

Like [the Weavers’] earlier recordings, it took place with Gordon Jenkins presiding and an orchestra in attendance. Prior to this, Jenkins had been very subdued in his instrumental approach, adding just the occasional sting and the odd swirl of strings to the Weavers’ cheery singalongs. Maybe he was growing bored, because his arrangement of “Wimoweh” was a great Vegas-y explosion of big-band raunch that almost equalled the barbaric splendour of the Zulu original. Trombones blared. Trumpets screamed. Strings swooped and soared through Solomon’s miracle melody. And then Pete [Seeger] cut loose with all that hollering and screaming. It was a startling departure from everything else the Weavers had ever done, but Billboard loved it, anointing it a Pick of the Week. Cash Box said, “May easily break”. Variety said, “Terrific!”

Custom MT skins?

by

Custom MT interface

So it appears that SocialDynamX, creators of FMRadio for Radio Userland (Disclaimer: I know nothing about either of these products) is working on creating a custom interface for MovableType.

First impression? Ugh, that’s horrid.

Now, I’m a little unclear from looking at their site as to whether that’s a replacment for the default MT interface that you see in your web browser (as is implied by the term “skin”), or whether it’s a seperate standalone program for posting to MT (such as Kung-Log, UserSpace or Zempt). If it’s a standalone program, then okay, it’s most likely Windows-based, and the horrid ugly interface makes sense. But if it’s a “skin” designed to replace the standard MT interface within the browser — why is it so verschluggene ugly?

I was going to go into more detail, but I’ve gotta head off to work, and I’m out of time. Judge for yourself, I guess. ;)

(via Scoble)

BuyTunes blows

by

Earlier this week BuyTunes popped up attempting to capitalize on the success of the iTunes Music Store by moving the same general idea to the Windows platform.

So far, the word is that they suck.

I already knew that they were blatantly ripping off Apple’s ads. I’d link to the BuyTunes versions, but that brings up the second major issue: they’ve restricted their website to Internet Explorer for Windows only. Any other browser, and you get redirected to this page. So far, things weren’t looking very good.

Then Jennifer at ScriptyGoddess actually tried to use BuyMusic’s services. Let’s just say that she’s not a satisfied customer.

First problem. After you buy an album, you need to download it. Sure, I knew that. What I didn’t know is that you have to download EACH SONG INDIVIDUALLY. One click per song. With Two large sized albums with many songs on it – it can be just a LITTLE annoying.

[…]

Second problem. Before each song plays – it has to download and verify your license. You can’t mulitple select a bunch and do this. You need to do this before EACH SONG will play.

[…]

Third and VERY big problem. […] Since I’m using Windows200, they force you to use a windows media plugin…[that] CRASHES consistently EVERY time I try to burn a CD. It is simply impossible to create a cd from my machine using that plugin.

[…]

And here comes problem number four. The “Main” license is the one I downloaded the first time to my machine (the windows 2000 box with the defective Roxio plugin). Subsequent downloads are “secondary licenses” from which you are not allowed to transfer to a mobile device, burn a cd, or do ANYTHING with except listen to them on that one machine.

[…]

In walks problem number five. Here’s their oh-so helpful (probably computer generated) form letter to me…

We apologize if you have experienced trouble downloading your music to a digital media player or copying your music to a CD. Unfortunately, We are unable to provide technical assistance after you have downloaded the music from BuyMusic.com to your primary computer. In addition, we are unable to credit you back for failed or damaged copies once you have successfully downloaded the music to your primary computer.

Sounds like BuyMusic is bound to be a bust, to me.

Bumper stickers!

by

This is great:

Bush needs to order new bumperstickers, but needs help with the slogan. Can anyone help?

(via Kirsten) Some favorites:

  • Cheney/Bush 2004: Making the world a better place, one country at a time.
  • Bush/Cheney: Four more wars!
  • Compassionate Fascism
  • Bush – because the truth just isn’t good enough.
  • In Africa the elephants screw each other – In America the elephants screw the people.
  • Because I’m the President, That’s why!
  • Bush/Cheney – less CIA, more CYA
  • Thanks for not paying attention
  • Re-elect Pass the Buck and Wag the Dog in 2004 (actually mine — Kirsten tossed it up — thanks!)
  • What recession? My friends are still rich.
  • Bush — He Sees Beyond the Truth
  • “Dictatorship sure would be easier!”
  • Bush/Cheney – if at first you don’t succeed, lie, lie again
  • Bush/Cheney ’04: We’re Gooder
  • Bush/Cheney ’04: Because civil liberties are for wussies.
  • Bush/Cheney 1984
  • Bush/Cheney ’04 – Because FOX says so.
  • Why Think? Vote Bush!