More Surprises From Blogger/Google
It's been a little while since I logged in to Blogger. Surprising to see the
migration to the Google login. I wonder how significant the changes under the
hood are. The surface only looks a little different. I've been using the Atomz
search engine since the early days of this blog. I wonder if it makes sense
to switch to the Google engine.
:::
February is Award Shows Month
I've never seen the British Film Academy Awards before. I enjoyed seeing the
Police do Roxanne at the beginning of the Grammys, but it hardly seemed a
historic moment. I didn't watch the Golden Globes or the Independent Spirit
awards. I'm sure I'm missing some shows, and you probably get my drift —
there are an incredible number of award shows in February.
Aside
from CNN's iffy promotion of their MLK papers programs, you'd hardly know that
February is also Black History Month.
The Oscars show last night was nice. On The View this morning, the
hens had a lot to say about the clothing, and nothing to say about Al Gore
or global warming. There was no political edge in the air during last night's
show. Gore was more entertaining than inspiring. Ellen De Generes' humor was
light, and safe. She has a much better shot at hosting again than David Letterman
or Jon Stewart.
:::
Can
photographers be plagiarists?
Slate has an interesting take on the question, which delves into the nature
of reference and parody in art. The piece illuminates the slippery nature of
the issue of plagiarism, placing it largely within the domain of the legal
system.
That's an apt placement, when you consider the semiotic concept of intertextuality:
Theorists of intertextuality problematize the status of 'authorship' treating
the writer of a text [or the artist who makes an image] as the orchestrator
of what Roland Barthes refers to as the 'already-written' rather than its
originator:
A text [or image] is... a multidimensional
space in which a variety of writings [or images], none
of them original, blend and clash. The text [or image] is
a tissue of quotations...
the writer can only imitate a gesture that is always anterior, never
original. – Chandler, Semiotics: the Basics, pg 196
The frontiers of a book [or work of art] are never clear-cut... it is caught
up in a system of references to other books, other texts, other sentences:
it is a node within a network... – Foucault, The Archaeology
of Knowledge,
pg 23
Photographers and visual artists often speak of 'reading' an image, and even
apply the term 'visual language' in analyzing works. This highlights how relevant
intertextuality is to the issue, which in turn raises problems with the idea
of authorship, and of plagiarism in art.
Students of art often hear that everything's already been done. Their
task is simply to find their own truth and to express it with integrity. 'Originality,'
personal vision, and style are framed in terms of the bodies of work the artist
produces, more than the individual piece.
:::
America the Brilliant
Sad to say, these clips are shot on the streets of my country. Hopefully, the
film crew encountered people who actually knew what they were talking about,
and edited those segments out. Unfortunately, it seems all too easy to find
many who don't have much of a clue...
:::
Subject: You just received a E-Greeting
Yeah, right! I've never received a legit e-greeting that didn't show the name
of the sender. That's the second clue that suggests this message is a phishing
expedition or an attempt to plant malware on my machine — the
first is the crappy formatting and questionable language of the subject line. The
message text opens as follows:
A Greeting Card is waiting for you at our virtual post office! You can pick
up your postcard at the following web address...
The message continues with a link that appears believable, but the link becomes
questionable when I hover my cursor over it. The tool-tip shows a completely
different address, one which reveals a potentially malicious intent:
That IP address isn't likely to be one that belongs to all-yours.net,
and the .exe probably means bad news for Windows users.
I imagine hundreds of people a day being suckered into clicking that link.
It's anyone's guess how many of those machines are now relaying phishing messages
just like the one that suckered their owners. Chances are, the first recipients
contacted by the newly-commandeered machine are the people in that user's Outlook
address book.
