Category: Doodles

Being a literate and angsty teenager has its benefits. For one, if you’re as pretentious as I was you will see yourself as a writer, poet and deliverer of truth, and learn touch typing while you’re smoking pipe and pounding on a typewriter.

Helping my mom to move the other day, I found my old texts in an envelope – writings for the learned scrawled on it – and tried to recall what it was that I though so important. (And why was I such a pompous douche?) I remember having very strong opinions on religion and politics, and the usual teenage frustrations with sex and violence, but I don’t remember why I thought them so important. Who did I think I was back then and where did I see myself heading?

After a while you cement your image, your convictions and personality, spending a ridiculous amount of time justifying them and surrounding yourself with people who fit them. Along the way you change bit by bit, all the while telling yourself that you’re the same person and fully justified to do these changes to yourself even in the face of past ideals. “Never work for the state” becomes “unless it’s really interesting,” “I’m a nice and just person” changes your definition of “nice” and “just” as you improvise a life together.

All of this is a roundabout way of saying that I ran 21 kilometers the other day and it got me thinking. One year ago I would only stop smoking long enough for the asthma attack to pass. Now I’m jogging, biking, and doing pushups because I feel like it. I don’t know what this means, and I don’t have a specific goal with the exercises, but it seems something has changed.

Fitness and body ideals seem like secondery issues. The interesting part of these changes is looking for what remains the same. How far does the idea that you become what you do extend? Judith Butlers suggestions regarding performativity seems to apply here, but is there something apart from the performace? What is the impetus of our continuous performance?

Do we just adopt habits and internalise them well enough to call it a personlity?

Meeting my childhood friend Albrecht the other day he commented that he saw no fundamental change; Whenever I decide to do something I overdo it, and this pulseclock–wearing version of myself is just a variation on a theme. So there maybe is consistency, that might be personality.

Those who met me for the first time when I’d just gotten the moustache know me as someone who takes pride in facial hair. My former students might recall a stammering slideshow and those who saw my MFA presentation still ask about lockpicking two years later.

Personal DNA is an almost broken website which allows you to do a personality test and then lets your friends do the same test on you. It shows the correlation between your self-image and what your friends think your self-image is. I filled it out for Anna and a few others and got a 70-80% match. When others filled out for me, the correlation was 40% or less. On the face of it I agree to 40% with my friends about who I am.

It might be all narcissism, but it’s Nacissus with Alzheimer’s: Wait, who’s that dude and why is he doing pushups?

The above images are portraits of me made from memory by Tobias, Jan and Anna using Flashface. If you’d care to do one of me without cheating, send me a screen dump and I’ll post it here. Also, try it on your friends and family, it’s harder than it might seem. Do your parents know what you look like?

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Ian Campbell sent his version:

Jonas Isfält showcases an uncanny sense of humour with his contribution:

The other day, while helping a friend move out from the apartment he shared with his girlfriend, I was wondering how I would have reasoned about dividing up stuff. It’s never occured to me that stuff like this would come up (which is telling of how experienced I am with relationships) outside of movies where a couple that are breaking up bicker over record collections. Your material possessions don’t so much possess you as they socially glue you to your surroundings; Stuff as interaction manifested relationships in itself, or somesuch.

–I bought this jar of pesto and by God I’m taking it! Oh, and this water heater that you bought only after breaking mine? I’m trashing it by accident, fuck you!

The only thing we trashed was an oven form that I dropped a bed frame on. Ah yes, the spoils of war and love.

Midsummer was spent in the lovely company of friends, and my birthday was spent on a boat with Anna & Jan and an engine that only fired on one cylinder and gave up the ghost next to the industrial dry docks on the shitty side of the river. Improvised team building, as it were. After poking and swearing at the engine for half an hour, we called Janne who was all manly and stuff, actually managing to fix the engine well enough to get us to an emergency port. My contribution to our efforts was limited to sunbathing and being a human fender.

(Before you ask: Yes, I do keep tabs on who forgot my birthday. You are on a passive agressive shit list.)

I’ve spent the past weeks learning how to scuba, working on my Polish tan, doing some freelance web stuff and buying a bike. And even though diving is great fun, I love my bike silly. There are many like it, but this one is mine! I’ve never had a bike this fast and I love me the commuting and silent cruising down dark streets.

True, the first thing that happened was that the front brake gave up on me – unsettling since it’s the only brake – but it’s given me reason to learn about fixing stuff, something I’m usually only good at in theory, or rather “theoretical theory,” meaning I know how to use Google. (which I call “knowledge aquisition” in my CV)

The bike is a frankenstein of different parts put together by Martin, and I posted a description + pictures on Happymtb in order try to identify it. I haven’t received much help in regard to identification, but plenty suggestions on which wheels I could get and how much a paintjob would cost. People I’ve asked seem to lean towards that it’s a French 70’s cheapo bike; Looking at old Peugeot models they have some similar details. If you have any hints, I’d appreciate your input.

Congratulations to us, there’s now at least one pirate in the EU parliament!

I don’t hold representative democracy in high regard, but it’s going to be interesting to see if Christian will get anything good done; Here’s hoping the green or left block buys him off by adopting the pirate platform in exchange for his support!

The panorama above is from the voting place at the central station in Stockholm Sunday evening, and the image below is the same panorama I always do whenever I’m on Skeppsholmen and am waiting for the bloody bus.

Tobias Hermansson is an evil man that enjoys clubbing seals, tearing wings off of flies, and doesn’t relent in his insistance that I look like Pedro. He used the power of Photoshop to make his case more convincing:

Speaking of voting, I’d urge all of you eligible to vote in the upcoming Swedish EU parliament election to support the Pirate Party. For real, if you don’t vote for them, you probably hate democracy. And puppies. What the fuck do you have against puppies you puppy–hating democracy–hater‽

Seriously though: “If voting changed anything they’d make it illegal” is more or less correct, but you could vote PP for shits and giggles if for no other reason. If you actually believe representative democracy is a good idea (oh, aren’t you adorable!) you ought to vote Pirate Party because every other party, left to right, doesn’t understand how the laws we’re passing on a national as well as international level are undermining every citizens right to privacy, and by extension all the provision that are in place that try to ensure a transparent democratic process and private communication and debate.

Who watchers the watchers, and so on. Go vote, you lazy bum. Piss off a few retarded politicians.

Judging from the people visiting here yesterday, maybe I just ought to rename the blog and start selling blow-up E.T. dolls or something. (And all you people who scoffed at my suggestion of doing an intergalactic Hustler! I could have been filthy rich! Hey, maybe it’s not too late? Who’s in? I need models who enjoy nudity and tentacles!)

In other news, here’s a pdf with instructions on how to handle yourself in case the swine flu goes pandemic. In my head this might as well be a zombie survival guide (stock up on food, water and guns) with the exception that maybe you don’t have to “smash their brains” in order to feel safe.

→ PandemicInfluenza Preparation and Response: A Citizen’s Guide [via Ask.Metafilter.com]

My brother and I have been pitching a project to a couple to newspapers. it’s about interactivity and making the value of journalism transparent – a meta project where the end result is still valuable because it’s hard work and doesn’t rely on shouting first but rather articulating a subject well. In the age of borked analogies, good journalism is like a well knit sweater – You might know how it was made and even have the pattern for doing it yourself, but you’d much rather just wear it than bother with the production. (I’m not paid for writing good analogies.)

Above all, good journalism shouldn’t be about springing surprises on the readership. The belief that exclusivity and having a scoop is what makes newspapers relevant is one reason of why the news industry is frantically grasping for straws (We’re on Twitter now!) in hopes of looking hip, while at the same time not allowing the new technology to affect how they fundamentally view their role in society and the function that they fulfill for their readership. (And advertisers)

Clay Shirky has a brilliant quote in one of his posts on the subject:
One of the people I was hanging around with online back then was Gordy Thompson, who managed internet services at the New York Times. I remember Thompson saying something to the effect of “When a 14 year old kid can blow up your business in his spare time, not because he hates you but because he loves you, then you got a problem.” I think about that conversation a lot these days.

→ Clay Shirky, newspapers and thinking the unthinkable.

Maybe we’ve gotten it ass backwards; Maybe we ought to be going at this as independents and establish our own platform instead of joining an existing one, but there’s so much knowledge amassed in the old journalistic institutions that it would seem a waste to disregard it. Just because the owners and directors can’t make money off of their papers doesn’t make the journalists themselves any less useful or interesting, so it’s disheartening to see where reporting seems to be heading and what lack of confidence journalists have in their own craft.

Crossposted from Metafilter on the subject of todays court ruling against The Pirate Bay in the lower court. Let’s see how it all will play out. In the mean time, I tried to formulate a few thoughts – They’re mostly rehashings of what has been said again and again by people a lot smarter and visionary than I, but what the hell is a blog good for if not self publishing? Check out the mefi thread for the discussion.

Copyright infringement is a violation of someone elses monopoly on exploiting whatever it is that falls under “intellectual property” and isn’t covered by patents or similar legal devices.

If I download an unathorised copy of a book you’ve written, it doesn’t follow that I’m causing detriment to you. Of course that could be construed as a cop-out — “Oh, I wouldn’t have bought that anyway” — but it’s a valid argument. Also, I could maybe even profit from it, (one of the charges levelled against tbp) but this does not automatically constitute detriment to you, unfair thought it might seem. (Big corps fucking over small time artists is a familiar theme)

I might enjoy your book, but that is a weak argument since it’s about moral right more than financial or other damage to you or your ability to make a living as an author. It’s saying “only if you pay me are you allowed to enjoy my work” which seems reasonable but is about your feelings and convictions more than detriment caused.

There are technical aspect to consider in this as well; If I use Bittorrent and seed as much as I leech, I might aid someone else to your detriment (Oh I don’t know. It’s an unedited copy and it’ll garner you a negative review. Or that other person is someone who otherwise would have bought the book. Whatever.) which of course has a bearing on your argument. (Difficult to measure though.)

But you need to differentiate between purely moral arguments which are founded on your thoughts of authorship — originality, uniqueness and the “creators” right to his/her own “work” — and more practical and pragmatic convictions and policies (A majority of our population believes musicians should be able to make a living off of music) and the implementation thereof.

Regardless on what side you come down on, the very way the Internet works forces the issue of copyright infringement to come head to head with other interests. It’s not fair, but in this case I don’t see how you can imbue technology with morals or a material model of scarcity.

Every decision that has been made lately (In Sweden as elsewere) regarding laws online, have eroded the notions of right to privacy in favour of political and financial gain. As much as I like having such a plethora of music, books and film to choose from, I’d rather have my privacy.

But until the fear and shortsightedness is beaten out of people by one fifteen year old with time on her hands after another, let’s put the same broken record on once again, shall we?

Continuing our experiments with GIF animations, I’m surprised by how crap the gif support is in Photoshop. And on Mac, there aren’t any alternatives for files larger than 100×100 px or so. Also, export for web seems to gunk up the cache; Files no larger than five megabytes crash the app, and each rendering takes a minute or two. Are there any good alternatives? Something as flexible as PS but faster (or, y’know, actually working) and maybe with a few more dithering options would be awesome. GIF is the most ubiquitous format for Internet animations, and it’s just too darn fun to play with not to use.

After an opening at gallery 54 & Box last weekend, a bunch of us went for food and drinks with the guest curator and her crew. At Lokal I ordered tempeh – curious since when I’ve tried to cook it at home it tasted of cat piss and old sweat – but must say that it was a meh experience. The granular texture and earthy taste make for an odd experience, but I don’t know if that is something that one wants to mask (like the absence of taste of tofu) or just get used to. I suspect it’s the latter, in which case I just have no choice but to buy a couple of kilos and pig out. Technically I don’t have to, but my tofu, gherkin and peanut butter diet is getting the better of me.

Time lapse from Lokal. I really ought to get myself one of those auto-rotating tripods for my IXUS.

A bingo hostess has a parrot up her snatch which draws numbered balls out. She’s taught it to cheat and she’s whispering which numbers should come out. Fuck you Internet!