On Friday I was mulling over an unfortunate habit of mine; whenever I feel stuck or otherwise inspiration deprived I have a tendency to lapse into a laconic sort of OCD state about presentation. As if by somehow creating the appropriate format, Content would miraculously fill itself in. In response a relative sent me this most awesome reminder:

(Click for the full glory)

You’ve probably heard the phrase that “the medium is the message”, which acts as a sort of causal entreaty to the superiority of design (which is to say, it’s less important what you say than how you say it). But reverse the causality and assume that the message is becoming the medium, and things start to look a lot more interesting.

Link via Gizmodo (Thanks Liz!)

Tags: Aesthetiophilia by Etruscan
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Apparently we’ve returned a search result for “and all the Earth will flame”. My faith in Google’s Page rank has officially been restored. Next goal: Rabid Squirrels Infect Small Connecticut Town with Ebola Virus.

Tags: Methodology by Etruscan
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I love all this talk about how Amazon’s Kindle will remake the way in which we consume written media. I’ve always been a big proponent of trying to minimize the physical aspects of culture (that is to say, the devices/space/access/cost needed) while maximizing its consumption. Cleaning out my RSS reader in between issues of the old Watchmen comics that Gestalt dropped off, I caught the Penny Arcade from a couple days ago and just couldn’t resist. What can I say, we’ve been on a bit of a comics bent lately.

The comic’s funny as hell, and the underlying point is solid. Popular technoculture sort of implicitly assumes that complex systems are naturally superior to simple ones (and this is more market driven than any intentional design principle; modulated scarcity and control of distribution being the big thing.). Many of the brightest people I know greatly value simplicity (be it code, cuisine, what have you), but our simplicities are conflicting, which makes the larger system ever more complex. We’re at that awkward phase where things like access standards and personal electronics haven’t become truly ubiquitous enough that they’ve rounded the corner and begun getting simple again. We’re still faced with multitudes of access options to have to sort through and choose from (what? You’re still on AIM?), the net itself has only begun to reach into the realm of semantically tagging information; we remain very much isolated islands despite the vast sea of data and facebook friends we’ve grown around ourselves. Nevertheless, I foresee a time when these social and technical systems will reach their maturity and allow us to interact with each other and our environment in massively directed and scalable ways.

Till then I’m gonna go grab a book.

Tags: Uncategorized by Etruscan
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I was surfing the interwebz this morning and came across this little comic.  I thought it was appropriate for the recent stint of conversations between Etruscan and I.

picture courtesy of www.leebow.com

There are times when BoL gets a lot of attention from its writers but then we have lulls.  Just like any other writer/producer we get bored, busy, burn-out or just plain blocked.  At times, we become over-stimulated with the idea that we are writing and it’s getting published on the internet and so therefore, it must be our best work.  Wrong, so, so wrong is that methodology of thinking.  Just write; write because you can.

I have come to the conclusion that the best type of writing is done when you are sleep-deprived and beyond your own wits of reality.  It seems that is when your mind is the clearest and can produce, at least for me.  Because your body is tired your mind is able to create and come forth.

I have also decided that just because we don’t post something for a few days or even a week or so…that is our style.  BoL keeps us writing and producing but on ‘our’ time not someone else’s time, which is so important.  We get to be creative, weird and even retarded when we want.  It’s a place of freedom and expression in a very personal way for each of us.  At this point, I don’t mind if anyone is reading this, I just love the fact that I was able to get my thoughts out in a way that if by chance someone did read it, it will have existed in more then just my mind.  Isn’t that why we write?

“Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice. “  ~ The Bard of Avon

Tags: Aesthetiophilia, I should probably go to bed by Nekogirl
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2am. 8 straight hours of playing BioShock. Nekos gone to bed, and I’m sad to say even the kitten has joined her. Personally, I’m curious how much neo-Randian dystopia its possible to fit into one evening. Perhaps when I’ve finished here I’ll re-read the Watchmen (c’mon now, you knew it was bound to show up somewhere) and drift into a media frenzied haze as my last early morning thoughts turn to such intimacies as toast-and-jam, and whether or not modern marketing is fundamentally designed around a flawed methodology. I’m thinking pretty good material to get me through the night. So tell us then, when 4am strikes, what keeps your mind occupied and suitably vicious?

Tags: I should probably go to bed by Etruscan
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