Beauty in made landscapes

Updated - Stanford stupidly took the site down, here's Burtynsky's own site.
I saw the Burtynsky exhibition at Stanford today. He takes haunting pictures of landscapes transformed by industry into scenes of devastation and strange beauty. Quarries that look like stacks of boxes or an auditorium, then you see a tiny vehicle and realise the scale.Shattered Ozymandian fragments of ships in Chittagong, towering over the people cutting them up for scrap.
Go look at them now.

Technorati Tags: art

The rush to judgement

When I heard radio reports of the London police shooting a suspect in the tube, my heart sank. It sounded like a failure to capture a suspect, it sounded like another possible attack, but most of all it sounded like the last chapter of Blink, where Gladwell analyses closely how easy it is a for a group of armed policemen in hot pursuit to make fatal snap judgements.
He summarized in Slate:

We tend to think that high-speed chases are a problem because of the dangers they pose during the chase. That's true enough. But the real problem is the danger they pose after the chase. I cannot tell you how many cops I talked to who spoke of how disoriented and crazed and incoherent they were after racing after someone through streets at 120 miles per hour. You finally cut off the suspect's car. You charge out of the cruiser. You yank open his door. Your pulse is 175. Your heart is in your throat. Your body is awash in adrenalin and cortisol. And everything we know about human physiology and psychology says that no one can make intelligent snap decisions under those circumstances.

Today the police said the man was unconnected to the attacks.

Updated: Blink's chapter discussed the shooting of Amidou Diallo. Jean Charles de Menezes was the man killed in Stockwell.

Technorati Tags: blink, london bombings

Digital Freedom in the UK

At the OpenTech conference today, there was a debate around establishing a British equivalent of the EFF. This seems a very good idea to me - with the UK's ability to push legislation through parliament in a hurry, and the ambiguous situation regarding European legislation versus UK common law, a group prepared to fight test cases and lobby about Bills in parliament. I signed Danny's pledge. My only quibble is with the name - lets talk about Digital Freedoms, not Digital Rights, as DRM has polluted that term already.

Technorati Tags: drm, eff15, opentech

Apollonian or Dionysian?

Apollo 11 landing

Google's lunar effort is amusing, but the panorama's shot by Apollo 11, Apollo 12 and Apollo 17 astronauts are the real thing.
Unless you believe the Google Ads chosen for the panorama site, that is.

You can hear Neil Armstrong's first unscripted words on the moon:

The surface is fine and powdery. I can kick it up loosely with my toe. It does adhere in fine layers like powdered charcoal to the sole and sides of my boots. I only go in a small fraction of an inch, maybe an eighth of an inch, but I can see the footprints of my boots and the treads in the fine sandy particles.

That echoes across 36 years clearly. I don't remember it well, being under 3 at the time, but my parents bought a TV set specially for the occasion.

Technorati Tags: apollo, moon

Microformat conversations

I've been having lots of conversations around microformats recently, with a gallimaufry of thoughtful and interesting people. Deeje has been experimenting, Suw has implemented events, and Danny O'Brien said

'RDF was the LSD of the 90s'

Technorati Tags: microformat, tags

Talking about tags and microformats

Back in April, I attended the Microsoft Social Computing Symposium, which included some coverage of tags. they just posted presentations there that only work in IE6 here's a direct links to Windows media files for:David Weinberger's 'From Trees to Tags'
Me reporting back on the Tags Birds of a feather discussion


Last week at Where 2.0 I was chatting with Chris Pirillo about tags and microformats, when he produced a pair of microphones and started recording.

Technorati Tags: hCalendar, microformat, podcasting, scs2005, tags, where2005

London calling

James Lileks talks of England's spirit revealed through Holst. My internal soundtrack was by Elgar, but reading blogs I heard the sound of The Clash coming through.

London calling to the faraway towns
Now war is declared and battle come down

I heard about the London bombings through wikinews and blogs. I watched people trying to make sense of these attacks together, collecting facts and telling their stories. Calling out to us.

London calling to the zombies of death
Quit holding out and draw another breath

And calling out defiance, pride and history too, whether from near or far.

London calling yes I was there too
An' you know what they said - well some of it was true!
London calling at the top of the dial
An' after all this won't you give me a smile?

I never felt so much alike...

My father and sister both went through affected tube stations that day. That bus blew up right outside my old office in London.
I'm proud of England's response, and that people are getting back to work and play. I intend to do the same.

Technorati Tags: london bombings