Ai Shinohara

 

Ai Shinohara's paintings are deceptively dreamy.  I am particularly clumsy with a brush, so I can't help but admire the fine detail and variety of smooth color combination and blending. (via Right Some Good)

Where are your private parts?
Mood:  chillin'
Topic: Seriously

I've still been thinking about privacy issues and the forced invasion of mine and others right to keep certain pieces of information about ourselves private.  I've also recently signed up for three more social networking sites.  I even have a job in which I custodian of user information that I would not want shared should I be that user.  Well, eventually the amalgamation of all this actually got combined into one thought and I queried, 'what exactly do I consider information to kept private?'  (yes, I talk to myself)

The answer isn't simple.  I am not even sure I have formulated the whole answer yet, and I'm sure that it would evolve and mutate with time and the current issues of my life, but I still think its a question that a lot of us should consider.  There have already been articles concerning the vulnerability of online teens to future employer discrimination based on information shared on their myspace and facebook pages, the dangers of online shopping and keeping your passwords safe, and how the immediacy and exhibitionism of our online environments is causing changes in how we act as a society.  I've even done a previous post on the mindset of people who do share themselves online.  Obviously, I don't think visibility online is a bad thing.  To me, the online world is just another dimension to the off line one.  Granted, its another dimension with almost interminable universal memory--an ability that the offline world has yet to develop. 

Because the stupid and/or embarrassing things I've done can never be erased, its helped me to own up to the fact that its ok to be perceived as stupid, geeky, embarrassing, what have you.  Everybody is at some time, or thinks that they are.  I also enjoy the record keeping aspect of it.  More than old photos, online archives keep snapshots of how my life was year after year.  And though a life online can be ego-stroking and a misguided attempt at permanence, I don't think my audience/circle of friends is any bigger online than offline.

Back to the topic at hand.  I have publicly(through social networking sites) shared my music and movie tastes, some of my literature tastes, interests, daily thoughts, school and job information, location, social connections, craft production, artwork, and opinions on other artists, politics, and social commentary.  I have shared through consumer relationships all of my literature tastes, my bath product preferences, my food choices, my banking and credit information, my travel habits, my shoe size, and my choices of extracurricular activities.  I'm sure those companies have some more dirt on me that I'm just not thinking of at the moment.  I expect and hope, that this data shared with my consumer relationships is being properly kept private or, at least, anonymized before it is disseminated for statistical purposes.  Oddly enough, perhaps because of privacy policies I've read, I admit that I consider the identifying information I have given to my email provider, my Google log in, and YouTube login to be private in the same type of way.  Here I am talking about the back-end information; the information that I cannot even see if I don't log into the system.  My favorites list, my notebook pages, and my viewing history.   I know my movements online are tracked and recorded.  In some cases, like with Amazon, I even reap some benefits directly with their recommendation making system.  I also know that outright selling/sharing of this type of information by any email service, profile offering search engine, etc would lose those sites the traffic that makes it possible for them to make any money.  It will establish a level of distrust in users that will encompass even the parent and related organizations.

So, I've considered what I have already shared, and what I have shared with the understanding of privacy.  What are those pieces of me that I want and need to remain private?  Of course, I find it necissary to keep my banking and sensitive identifying information private.  I also consider some of my reading, activity, and viewing proclivities to be sensitive information.  And I have a strong desire to blip off the radar once and while.  Maybe its an innate predator/prey paranoia, but I'd rather not all of my movements were recorded.  What information about you do you feel needs to be protected the most?  

Strange, Weird, Unusual USB drives
Mood:  bright
Topic: Oh So Shiny

Left to Right, top to bottom:  JT Baby USBs over at Popgadget, Cina's lazer cut USB,  Luminous Squid USB from SolidAlliance, Sushi USB at Shiny Shiny, Owly and Psy Mimobots,  and the Robot USB.  If that isn't enough to make you dream of paying 300% more for memory because its clad in a cool shell, then check out: 15 Unusual and Strange USB Drives. 

My Traumafession on Kindertrauma
Mood:  a-ok
Topic: miscellanea

For those of you who have not already stumbled upon the ingenuitous-ness that is Kindertrauma, I am now sending you there to discover for yourself.  Join the cathartic outpouring of horrific reminiscences, or just read my own traumafession.  While you're there, go ahead and read Richard of DoomedMovieThon's very own (one of a couple?) traumafession as well.

Photographer: Maleonn Ma
Mood:  happy
Topic: Oh So Shiny

Maleonn Ma working in Shanghai, China, creates some of the most amazing photographs I have ever seen.  His concepts and execution form a both disconcerting and alluring world.  I'm kind of at a loss for words.

From Unforgivable Children

From Days on the Cotton Candy

From Portrait of Mephisto 

(thanks to i09) 

Copyright and Privacy issues
Mood:  not sure
Topic: Seriously

I'm getting a little creeped out of my skin reading the BBC article on the Viacom vs Google case currently being contested.  YouTube has been brought under fire in the past for allowing users to upload copyritten material and managed to come out of it ok.  Now that Google owns YouTube, it looks like the court cases will begin again.  Anyway, I fail to see why user viewing habits, IP addresses, usernames and passwords need to be known by Viacom though.  They say its to prove that illicit material is more popular (any child psychologist could verify its probably true), but what does that matter any way.  If the crux of their case is that their property is being uploaded and viewed on YouTube, it shouldn't matter how many or which individuals view it.  And really, all videos on YouTube have a tag on how many times the video has been viewed--pulling the info with no personal information should be easy.  That the court ruled in favor of surrendering personal user information has got me cooking up paranoid future scenarios for what the info will be used for in the future.  From the article:  

"Google must divulge the viewing habits of every user who has ever watched any video on YouTube, a US court has ruled.

The ruling comes as part of Google's legal battle with Viacom over allegations of copyright infringement."

"The viewing log, which will be handed to Viacom, contains the log-in ID of users, the computer IP address (online identifier) and video clip details."

I believe strongly that intellectual property should be protected, and that the freedom of its discrimination should be in the hands of its creator, and then secondly its owner in other fashions.  I find it interesting however that issues of copyright and ownership have so successfully violated personal privacy.  Where is the line to be drawn between what is evidence of intellectual property theft and what is theft in order to get evidence?  More and more it seems like the citizen gets the short straw in favor of corporations and agencies who can shove more money into powerful pockets. 

What are our courts doing with themselves and our rights lately anway?  Where is our privacy going and why is the access to that information being given to non government corporations without government mediation?  Recently Bush made the move to hold harmless phone companies for illegal wire tapping, and the House passed a bill to allow the RIAA to take your property(and all the info on it probably).  At least in 1984, our rights to privacy were being pillaged by the government, here and now they're being pillaged by the companies from whom we buy our goods and services.  Who exactly is running this country anyway?

Seven Deadly Sins: two glorious art collections
Mood:  silly
Topic: Oh So Shiny

 

Chris Antemann's Lust & Gluttony sculpture(via Art MoCo) brings new life and interest to the form of figurine that would normally be walked passed in my grandmother's house.  I admit I love those old figurines, and even more the anomalies that weren't supposed to be strange when they were made.  Antemann's work seems to capitalize on this and add so much more depth and playfulness at the same time.  

 

I would be both wary and excited to drink from Kacper Hamilton's Seven Deadly Glasses (via Serious Eats).  I love wine, and I love creative depictions of religious conceptions done in surprising media.  This glass collection is amazing in its inventiveness.  Even better are Hamilton's own words on his creation, "The ‘7 Deadly Glasses’ are about celebrating passion and  encouraging the user to be sinful in a theatrical fashion."

Penelope Sea and Luella
Mood:  cool
Topic: miscellanea

 

Comments from outside the Paranormal book isle
Mood:  happy
Topic: Hmmm?

Sometimes I really love how newspapers have made their online articles comment friendly online.  While I was reading Tennant and District Times of Australia article:  UFOs frighten Marlinja family, I found a reference in the comments to something called Nibiru and how its impending approach is causing the increasing occurrences of UFOs.  

My interest is always peaked when a hitherto unknown group of die-hards or a secret society or subculture is hinted at.   I only dabble in reading things like Paranormal Magazine regularly, so I had never heard of a 10th planet on an extended elliptical orbit that's next coming was predicted by a thousands of years old Sumerian myth.  

For those of you who do also not know, and who often haunt areas of the book store that are not the Paranormal and New Age section--here's what I found out.  Nibiru was written by in depth by Zecharia Sitchin.  Before Sitchin, the Sumerian myth of a race of aliens who mined Earth for its gold and genetically altered apes to be the superworker human race and the anomalies in the orbits of Uranus and Neptune.  There has also been an anomalous space object spotted in the direction of Orion in 1983 which was speculatively dubbed Planet X.  For believers of Stichin, this Planet X is Nibiru, and its approach will cause something akin to the end of the world.  

What I find interestingly thorough about the Nibiru researchers claims is that almost every astronomical prediction for the coming years--the pole shifting, the massive earth changes--can all be tied into the gravitational upset that will happen when Nibiru arrives.  The great flood, Sumerian and Egyptian technological advances, and all can also be tied into Nibiru's and its inhabitants effect on our planet.  Like so many other wholly-too-large-to-be-comprehended or proven theories about our planet, individual acceptance of Nibiru's existence is a faith thing.  

NASA discovers 10th planet. 

About.com's Paranormal Phenomena article 

Tables
Mood:  quizzical
Topic: Oh So Shiny Home

It's no surprise that I, once again, will be extolling the wonder of things that are more than the things they are.  I do so love built in surprise and function and decoration.  So, today we are looking at awesome tables that are more than they are/or appear to be. 

 

 

Vase table from Paul Loebach (via Design Milk), and Play coffee table from BCXSY (via Apartment Therapy). 

 

Sheep from Itay Ohaly (via MoCo Loco), Daydream coffee table by Yu Zhao (via Apartment Therapy).

Charles Constantine's Coffin Table (via Inhabitat).  AZE design's Messy Table Cloth (via Serious Eats) would make any old table you already have interesting.

Thomas Doyle's miniatures
Mood:  chillin'
Topic: Oh So Shiny

Thomas Doyle encapsulates worry, fear, and our ability to live without looking at the world around us all in his tiny sculptures.  More than the sculptures themselves, that they are under glass allows the viewers to remain all wrapped up in their own little worlds while looking at the members of each intricately constructed scene being similarly wrapped up.  Soon enough, I'm imagining worlds within worlds like an infinite image.  Somewhere in this house is a tiny globed sculpture of another house and its inhabitants.  And somewhere far above me is someone looking into my glass enclosure.   

(via Craftzine) 

Old but good library news: living library
Mood:  happy
Topic: Hmmm?

An article from the Times Online outlines and gives wonderful insight to a new library project where-in library patrons can borrow a person for a set amount of time in order to learn more about them and the possible stereotypes that they may represent.  

“We work on the principle that extreme violence and aggression happens between people who don't know each other. So the Living Library can bring together people who are otherwise unlikely to meet. We want to show that not every Muslim wants to blow you up, not every policeman is a bully.” --Ronni Abergel (Living Library's founder)

This article is all old hat out in libraryblogland, but I finally got around to reading it and really enjoyed some of the insights from a participating 'book' on one of the living library nights.  It's not too difficult to look around and see that the advancement of industry in many countries has made it all the more easy for people not to interact and depend on one another.  The more and more we turn in towards ourselves and our own little circle of friends and family the more we deprive ourselves of knowing some truly amazing people and of forming ill concieved notions of what these strangers are really like.  

Redecorating the office
Mood:  bright
Topic: Oh So Shiny Home

While I fantasize over the perfect way to redecorate my office area at home, I often leave out the facts that the room also serves as a guest bedroom and band practice studio, as well as additional storage for the house.  So, what follows are dream pieces for if ever my office was only my office.  

 

Read like a book:  Aluminum desk at Cole Scego Design (via Boing Boing), Eames Aluminum Management Chair, Cubistorus at Art. Lebedev Studio (via Apartment Therapy), LA Scavenger found these awesome swivel chairs. 

 

Or I could have an otherwise empty room and just live in a desk house from  design-mong (via Boing Boing Gadgets). 

Mikhail Baryshnikov
Mood:  energetic
Topic: Hmmm?

Ah, VH1's I Love the 70s is really quite addictive and way too easy to leave on when there is really nothing else going on.  And that lead to this, me wondering what was going on with Mikhail Baryshnikov.  If I watched the show, I would have seen him on Sex and the City a couple of years ago, but I missed it.  A little bit more investigating yielded a couple of stories about his photography show just last month: New York Entertainment Interview, International Herald Tribune.  

When I was growing up Mikhail Baryshnikov was doing the impossible and making ballet popular among main stream audiences.  And when he eased away from ballet and more and more encorporated experimental coriography into his dance, he was still amazing enough to get my football player little brother to admit it. I don't know if there is anything more pleasure-filled than watching someone who has perfected an art perform.  Ah, memories.  I am glad that Baryshnikov seems to be doing well.

Vermillion Pleasure Night
Mood:  happy
Topic: Oh So Shiny
Vermillion Pleasure Night is a comedy skit show from Japan, and it will be your mind blowing wackiness quotient for any night you devote to perusing an episode.  It is shiny, and happy, and raunchy, and full of singing, and guaranteed to reshape the part of your heart devoted to comedy skit shows so that no other show will ever fit in it again.  Believe me.  If you've seen the Fuccons, or the 1 point English lessons on You Tube, then you have mearly sampled a tiny taste of what is to be had with the entire Vermillion Pleasure Night show.