(no subject)
I'm kicking myself for posting so much to this; whatever my motivations are for starting a blog, they are almost certainly undermined by the sheer volume of text. But what do I do with all this crap floating around in my head? I feel like I just lanced an abscess, and this blog is the continuous draining of its pus. Still, I'm compelled....
A few things:
- Erratum from last post: The name of the movie is Network. Just Network--no "the."
- The recent Penny Arcade commentary on the conflict between print comics and webcomics raises two interesting issues. First is Tycho's association between personal prestige and comic tangibility. Pinker makes explicit what should be obvious: the vast majority of people have an instinct to increase their social rank that, ultimately, increases their sex appeal. In an isolated culture, the means of doing this might be very clear--accumulate wealth, go kill a mammoth. But with a fluid culture, people can seek out and fall into bizarre cultural eddies with their own value compass. Here, Tycho is living in a world where he sees "print" as "up" (in prestige, rank, whatever.)
- Also, Gabe's note about PVP, which allows any newspaper to print its comic to get people to visit his website, seems triumphant to me, since I'm interested in freeing up intellectual property. This is hardly a GNU license or open source comic, but the more people decide that their best market option is increasing gratis access to their ideas, the better, as far as I'm concerned.
I wish college would start so I could start putting my humming grey matter machinery to some use (what use?)