Elsewhere on the Tree we've been discussing Google, on and off. Two analogies I've been thinking about. Maybe someone else has posted about this.
1. Just as biodiversity is good for an ecosystem, having a lot of search alternatives is healthier than having just one. Practices such as googlebombing emerge because people figure out the weaknesses of the system. Eventually the system becomes unreliable, diseased, because too many people know how to exploit it in ways it wasn't meant to be used. If there are no alternatives remaining when it rots, the ecosystem (Web) as a whole suffers.
2. Google is like the Interstate highway system. Towns on older roads decay and shrivel up because everyone starts building to catch passing traffic on the superhighways. Weblogging, with its heavy dependence on the link-and-constant-update-loving Google, is like Motel 6 and the Olive Garden. Yet just as those clusters of Interstate franchises will be collecting tumbleweeds when the oil economy winds down, many webloggers now furiously linking to each other to "up their ratings" will be history when, say, Google is wrecked by greedy shareholders after it goes public. And there'll be no "old growth" community to fall back on, because static websites will have packed it in for lack of hits (see #1 above).
These are meant to be words of caution, not pessimism. Just use Dogpile once in a while.
Check out my sketches based on the movie
Blade 2 here. Caution: not for the squeamish. Also, a capsule review.
Musto on murderous club-kid king Michael Alig. A movie is in the works, no doubt looking for that audience who's world
didn't change on 9/11. Party on, kids.
Ok meal at Solera, nice meals at Blue Hill and The Tonic,
another fab meal at GSIMidtown, another raid on the list at Manducati's (still some gems:>), really need to get back to Al Di La cause it s/b up on top list.....
The plan is to convert a
DNA sequence – the order of the four chemicals that form the genetic code of a plant or animal – into a piece of digitally encoded music that can then be copyrighted like any other tune.
Talk about a gestation period; it only took nine months, but I finally got my new Bookstore Clerk! That's a
typical government timeframe. She's just out of film school, and I guess the pickings are slim. I told her I know someone who'll hire her, as soon as
he gets a job. (Just kidding; no way I'm letting her go.) Now maybe I'll actually be able to take a vacation…
Do As We Say, Not As We Do
In Mexico, George W. introduced "Millennium Challenge Grants," foreign aid available to developing countries that "end corruption, reform their economies and help their own people," in the Washington Post's words.
Below is the
Artforum ad layout for my upcoming show with Gregor Passens in Munich. The dates have been changed: they're now May 3 - June 14, 2002.
[ad removed for remodeling]
another daily candy like venture:
flavor pill.
The earliest know photograph has been sold.
It's a photo of an
engraving. Technology keeps devouring itself.
Czech Republic Enacts World's First National
Light Pollution Law
In the Bay Area, a new breed of restaurant is on the rise: places that are devoted entirely to serving
small portions of serious food. The cooking styles are all over the map — Italian, French, Greek, Southwestern, Hawaiian, Asian — often on the same menu. Eating from everyone else's plate is not just acceptable, it's required. You can order half of a petit "rack" of lamb at Isa in San Francisco. Or the "taco" of ahi tartare in a crisp little potato shell and a side of curly polenta fries at Andalu. The restaurants even have their own miniature cut of steak — called the flatiron, it's about the size of half a chicken breast.
aka gets
best burger in ny mag's best of issue.
Ramones vs. Talking Heads
Punk hits the Hall.
"
Welcome to Booklend, a lending library that sends books out by the mail. Booklend is the creation of a man with a postage meter, a roomful of books, and an urge to share. Borrowing a book is free, and you're welcome to keep the book until you're done. Read it at your leisure -- nobody likes to be rushed while they're reading. When you're done, pop it back in the mail. We'll even pay return postage."
