Faire le pont

Savage Minds: Notes and Queries in Anthropology – A Group Blog: The Rest of the World En fait, j'avais lu une partie de l'article mais j'étais passé par-dessus ce concept de "bridge-bloggers" (décrit dans un journal de l'association américaine d'anthropologie). En tant que francophone écrivant en anglais et en français, je me sens plus ou moins concerné. Bon, bien sûr, la majorité de ce que j'écris est en anglais. En partie parce que ce que je lis est en anglais et parce que ce que j'écris dans un contexte académique est généralement en anglais. En fait, ce blogue est un peu, pour moi, une façon de pratiquer mon anglais. J'ai bien entendu l'habitude d'écrire en anglais depuis un certain temps (surtout depuis mes premiers pas en-ligne en 1993), mais j'essaie d'améliorer certains aspects de mon écriture. Ce que j'aime faire, parfois, c'est d'écrire en anglais sur des sujets qui touchent des francophones. Sans même penser à un public précis, je me dis que ça peut éventuellement servir comme «traduction culturelle» du français vers l'anglais. Je fais pas trop le contraire. Entre autres parce qu'il y a fort probablement plus de francophones qui lisent l'anglais que d'anglophones qui lisent le français. Mais aussi parce que le français est mon «code-nous» et que j'ai tendance à être plus personnel en français. Comme je veux me distancer un peu du mode personnel sur ce blogue, j'ai pas trop tendance à traduire vers le français. Justement, c'est une problématique assez personnelle, cette question de faire un pont entre différentes cultures. Quand on déménage en moyenne à tous les 4,4 mois, ç'a un effet sur notre perception de la réalité. Justement... Je vais certainement écrire plusieurs choses là-dessus mais je viens de déménager à Northampton, dans le Massachusetts. Très intéressant comme endroit. Charmante petite ville universitaire (Smith College). Bonne ambiance. Gens intéressants. Cafés sympas, terrasses agréables, restos divers. Plutôt tranquille, surtout en comparaison avec le MidWest. Nous sommes à distance de marche du centre-ville, du campus et de plusieurs services. En fait, c'est le logement que mon épouse va occuper puisque je vais enseigner à l'autre bout du Massachusetts pendant qu'elle fera des recherches post-doctorales à Smith. Pour l'instant, je compare surtout à des endroits comme Burlington (Vermont) et Provincetown (sur Cape Cod) avec quelques aspects qui me font penser à Bloomington (Indiana) et Fredericton (Nouveau-Brunswick). Contrairement à Moncton (Nouveau-Brunswick) ou South Bend (Indiana), c'est une ville qui est assez favorable aux piétons. Très important pour moi. Eh bien, quoi? J'ai dit «disparate», non?

Email vs. RSS

Will RSS replace eMail? It will if I can help it. Geared toward a specific form of file-based "collaboration" for which email seems to be a less than optimal solution. Strange that one should think one technology can simply replace a different technology. Maybe email will cease to exist because of thee problems cited in this piece but it's quite unlikely that RSS would be used for everything people do with email.

iTunes Shuffle

OmniNerd - Articles: How Much Does iTunes Like My Five-Star Songs? Apart from the typical comment about user perception, it's much more scientific approach to the issue than has been used in most discussions so far. Still not completely convinced about how random my iPod 2G is in all situations, I still do perceive some clustering effect at times. Not that it plays the same artists over and over again but that some randomly-generated playlists seem to bring together tracks that have something in common, possibly based on hard disk location. Still, this short test provides interesting data.

Vélos communautaires

Wired News: A P2P Network for Bikes Pas mal comme principe. Bon, l'analogie avec le P2P est plutôt indirecte, mais l'implémentation elle-même semble bien pensée.

Changing the World?

Wired News: Shoplifting as Social Commentary One movement at a time.

WiFi Zombies?

Is WiFi Good or Bad for Business The linked piece is typical journalism. Transform a social phenomenon into an "issue" and then pretend to balance advantages and disadvantages of that social phenomenon. The blog entry itself is more to the point. As can be expected, many publications discuss this same issue, usually rehashing the same opinions. The trigger was probably this Wired article, though that piece is less about the "zombie" phenomenon than about a way to get people involved in new online activities. Those are not new ideas as Italian cafés were allegedly exploring similar solutions a number of years ago (as per Wired, IIRC). Café owners were discussing this same issue recently. And the Valley Advocate's "suggestion" to Woodstar Café in Northampton is to abandon WiFi. So, what is this all about? Wireless access to the 'Net has greatly increased in recent years, notably in cafés and other public spaces. In many of these places, patrons bring their laptops to do different things online. Typically, these laptop users have limited interactions with people around them while they use their computer and consume fairly little through the extended period of time they spend in the public space. Some people even hog large tables at inopportune times and can become rude when they're disturbed by someone while using their computer. That's one way to put it. A large part of the question is simply about café culture, whether or not the public space is in fact a coffee shop. Despite the romanticized notion that people go to cafés to meet new people and start revolutions, cafés can serve many purposes. It can be a quiet place away from home where one can read a newspaper. Or it can be, as in Vienna, a place where people spend hours writing their thoughts while observing other people (tea houses are also good places for that). People might set up meetings at cafés because it doesn't matter if people are late. Some cafés are even about, gasp, drinking coffee! A common thread is that cafés are a place where people can stay for a while without bothering or being bothered by anyone. A successful café is likely to be a place where people feel welcome and can stay for a while. Quite the reverse of McDonald's where the idea is to get people in and out as efficiently as possible. Some cafés are closer to the McDonald's model and may even succeed, but many cafés are very successful in making people feel comfortable whether or not they consume a lot while there. Should follow this up at some point with personal experiences in different cafés in different places.

Speech in Business

Smart Talk: Speech-enabled apps deliver bottom-line benefits - Computerworld Discusses some aspects of speech technologies (Speech Recognition and Text-to-Speech) in business contexts. Bank transactions and similar operations have been the most common applications of SR and TTS but there's room for a lot more. Speech might come of age soon.

Des Moines et des touristes

DesMoinesRegister.com: Montreal is Magnifique On dirait qu'ils ont apprécié... ;-) Assez réaliste, quoique peut-être trop enthousiaste.

Utah Beer Riots?

South Salt Lake drafts home-brew ban - just in case What do they expect, the Chicago Beer Riots? Actually, the situation bears some similarities as it's about laws that are not enforced.

Architecture et histoire

Montreal City Weblog: L'Autre Montréal, Heritage Montreal Les visites guidées, c'est pas seulement pour les touristes...

Please Don't Pressure Monks!

Celebrator Beer News : Apr/May 2005 : International : Trappist Westvleteren (Chuck Cook) Great article with an elaborate explanation of the alleged "shortages" of beer. Nice comments about the monks' goals.

Rhythm Acquisition

Babies detect unfamiliar music rhythms easier than adults Some potentially fascinating ideas from this research. Mentions of language acquisition and the notion, dear to culturalists throughout the history of anthropology, that enculturation is a selection process from a large set of possibles. The latter notion runs a little bit like the fact that infants are able to reproduce any speech sound at a certain point in their development but that they then learn to restrict their production to those sounds that are present in their native languages. IMVHO, the type of research this item describes would be much more relevant to most music research than efforts to localize "music processing" in the brain.

Is Vegas Out of This World?

Wired News: Move Over Pyramids, Wynn's Here

'We will keep getting bigger, keep getting bolder in Las Vegas,' he says. 'It's what makes this city great, it's why people want to come here.'

Only in Vegas.

Molson �Moncton

Molson construira à Moncton l'une des brasseries les plus modernes au monde En partie grâce à l'appui du provincial. Sachant que Pumphouse et Picaroons ont gagné des prix nationaux, qu'ils sont des représentants plus adéquats du monde brassicole néo-brunswickois et que leur financement est minime, pourquoi ne pas les soutenir plutôt qu'enrichir Molson et Moosehead?

Leak as Album Preview

Playlist: Fiona's Extraordinary Machine, retail rebounds?

fans and interested parties were given perhaps the most famous album preview in the history of recorded music

Actually an interesting practice, even though industry executives weren't "in on it," More clueful than most current practices...

Montreal/US Differences in Binge Drinking

Drinking outside the box

"If nothing else convinced meof the counterproductive effects of American drinking laws on college life," he writes in Binge, "my experience at McGill University in Montreal did."

And McGill's probably much closer to the US model in drinking than UQÀM and UdeM or even Concordia. At least, that's the main impression you get from people. Binge drinking is a huge problem at Indiana University Bloomington and the administration is applying even stricter rules, which is exactly the strategy to make it worse. Isn't it ironic that Ruth Engs is over there at IUB?

Epigenetics

Wired News: Whew! Your DNA Isn't Your Destiny As is often the case, the article sounds overly confident as to the benefits of the research. On the face of it, it does sound like an interesting direction for research. It'd be nice to have a clear explanation of what the epigenome means for interactions between biology and environment, including social environment. There certainly has been an overemphasis on genes as direct causes of anything, recently.

Baladodiffusion contre radio communautaire

NPR defining new Podcast strategy [Mis à jour mardi 16 août 2005 21:26:36 pour ajuster mon ton un péremptoire.] Tristan Louis:

The second part here is that NPR is working on a downloadable and portable strategy, which goes against the core of Doug Kaye's argument that public radio is doomed.

On n'a probablement pas compris le texte de Doug Kaye de la même façon. ÀMHA, ce sont deux choses assez distinctes. D'un côté, NPR est en train de trouver une façon d'embarquer sur la vague de la baladodiffusion. Intéressant, sans doute. Pas très nouveau. Les «médias de masse» qui parlent de baladodiffusion mentionnent souvent qu'ils se prennent au bon moment pour ne pas répéter l'erreur qu'ils ont commises à ne pas comprendre les blogues. Quoique, leur «longueur d'avance» dans le podcasting demande à être analysée finement. Mais cet effort n'altère aucun des arguments de Doug Kaye par rapport au modèle de radio communautaire qui, selon lui, va s'effacer par rapport à la baladodiffusion. Et Doug Kaye ne signe pas vraiment la condamnation des radios communautaires. Tout au plus, note-t-il le manque d'adéquation entre ce vieux modèle et une prise en main de nos médias. Bien sûr, la radio communautaire risque d'exister encore longtemps. Mais elle ne peut pas rester inchangée.

Modelling Societies

[Geowanking] building social modelling tools Ok, didn't RTFA, just skimmed it. Quite elaborate for a mailing-list post and it's harder to read off context. (Was mentioned by Tim O'Reilly.) The thrust seemed to be to look at causalities between social processes and environmental factors, à la Jared Diamond (of GG&S fame). As an aside, have been more of a Civilization player. Including the open-source Freeciv. Used some examples in class. Not because of the war aspect (always try to win with "culture" in Civ3). But because of the oversimplified social model. Should probably give SimCity a try at some point. Not a big gamer altogether.

WiFi as Amenity

Macworld: News: US burger chain beefs up free Wi-Fi to 243 stores

When the Wi-Fi service was proposed, the company quickly chose to provide it for free, he said. "It's so simple to provide free wireless, and it's incredibly complicated to charge for it," Reid said. "We looked at it and it was just a no-brainer. It's like having a clean parking lot and clean bathrooms. It's just another amenity for our customers."

Good way to look at it!

Feed/fil Atom

Oups! Le fil Atom de ce blogue n'était pas affiché... Oops! This blog's Atom feed wasn't displayed...

Getting a Clue?

Playlist: Sexohol sells:

Apparently when you're issued your membership to the RIAA, you receive not only an ID card, glow-in-the-dark lapel pin, and mystic watch fob, but a pamphlet titled "Ways to Resist the Inevitability of Change," which begins: 1. Whenever the subject of improving the marketing and distribution of music through technology is introduced, jam your fingers into your ears and belt out –with Mermanesque verve–"There's No Business Like Show Business." 2 - 10. See 1. Okay, so maybe it's not that bad. The fact that outfits like the iTunes Music Store exist at all indicates that the music industry gets part of the equation. However the promotion of copy protected CDs and the continued existence of radio payola demonstrates that the industry still has a foot in the Stone Age.

Fun-ny! :) Too bad he didn't expand on numbers 2–10...

Homebrewers Going Pro

This podcast episode had a few things about homebrewers going pro, including a comment, by Brewers Association director Paul Gatza, that 90% of professional craft brewers started as homebrewers. IIRC, the same statistic was mentioned by Ken Wells, of Travels with Barley fame on the July 16, 2005 episode of The Beer Show. This statistic must be listed somewhere on the Brewers Association website.

Language Ideology in France

Pod Mag #12 Part II interview Melting Pod Among other things, some interesting comments about language ideology in France, its effects on the perception of French-speakers who podcast in English and even a hypothesis on the role of the French language in UN diplomacy.

Measure Happiness

Money can buy you happiness but only relative to your peer's income

Happiness was measured using a self-report response of 'very happy,' 'pretty happy,' or 'not too happy.'

Gender Differences in Computer Science

Why aren't more girls 'geeks'? With special emphasis on differences between "countries." Wonder what Summers has to say about this...

How to Choose Good Friends for Teenagers

Parents can help teens choose 'good' friends, study finds Describes a U.S. model of friendship and the impact parents may have in their teenage children choosing "the right friends."

The results showed teens are more likely to have good friends – ones who don't fight and who have plans for college, for instance – if they have a warm relationship with their parents and if their parents choose to live in a neighborhood with high-quality schools.

Wonder what Penny Eckert has to say about this. As for of how parents and their children should interact:

A good-quality relationship is one in which parents and teens participate in activities together, communicate frequently, and express affection for one another.

Wonder what they would say about family relations in, say, Mali or the Philippines.

Podcasting Tips

oreilly.com: Ten Tips for Improving Your Podcasts From Jack Herrington, author of Podcasting Hacks. Part part teaser, sample chapter, part summary, part discussion. Emphasis on the audio portion of podcasting. Mostly from the context of "citizen radio," with few ideas that are really specific to podcasting. Alludes to the diversity of viewpoints in podcasting. Still some notion of what a successful podcast might be like. Format, schedule, and script are probably the ones which warrant the most discussion. Herrington's tone is non-authoritative enough that discussion would be possible. Maybe in the Comments section. One major advantage of podcasting in contrast to radio is that duration isn't so much of an issue. Of course, a show shouldn't be so long as to discourage download or listening. But if a good discussion is happening in a podcast, there's little reason to cut it short. At worse, it could be split into shorter pieces. This is rather similar to the open-ended interviews we do in ethnographic research: getting people to talk. Herrington's tips still allow for this type of freedom but seem to make little difference between a radio show and a podcast. Granted, podcasting is still emerging and much of its development does relate to radio shows. Yet the advantages of podcasts over commercial or public radio can also be discussed lest we reproduce the mistakes of "Old Media" mimicking their regular content in online form. Podcasting differs from radio as web pages differ from print pages. With the added dimension that podcasts can in fact include video, text, and images.

"Open Source" Radio?

Blogarithms: The Future of Public Radio An insightful piece on challenges facing public radios. Well, insightful to one who has been thinking some of the same thoughts. Been meaning to send some ramblings on podcasting so this is as good a time as any. Was pretty much raised with «CBF Bonjour», the "morning show" on the AM station for Radio-Canada (CBC). All the same, have never been a big fan of radio. Recently started to listen to podcasts with iTunes 4.9. Been observing some trends. And in fact listened to several episodes of "podcasted public radio." One thing public radio does that podcasting cannot do is to receive live calls from the audience. For instance, Open Source, the program mentioned by this blog entry, gets calls from both guests and audience members. One thing that's really easy to notice, though, is that those live shows are very directly controlled, including the calls. Not necessarily for content, though there's some responsibility in the host's reaction to calls, but certainly in timing. As can be expected, this often means that no actual conversation can take place because the show is constantly "running out of time" (especially with all those "breaks" which, thankfully, aren't included in the podcast version). With podcast versions of live shows, there's no way to interact with the guests directly. In the case of Open Source, most calls come from Massachusetts (for practical reasons). So we end up with static content controlled by a small group of people. As recording engineers know, "live" rarely translates into good recordings. Where's the community here? The local community for the specific station? Not quite as these shows are supposed to be made available to a wider audience. Those whose views correspond to those of the host? Maybe, but angles aren't typically acknowledged. Thing is, podcasting do encourage conversations. Some of them live (thanks to Skype, among other things) but many of them "time-shifted" which permits reflection, preparation. Those do encourage community building.

Google v. Publishers

O'Reilly Radar > Google Library vs. Publishers Yes, BZ time for Google... Interesting debates with, as with most debates, valid points on both sides. For an end-user, academic, and wannabe-geek, it's hard not to side with Google (and Tim O'Reilly). Here's a nice quote:

another case where old line publishers are being dragged kicking and screaming towards a future that is actually going to be good for them.

The same could be applied to many in the recording industry and other "Old Media" players. It's quite possible that those who resist so much (the "old line publishers" and music industry executives) simply haven't been able to look any further than the tip of their collective nose. Some associate it with the typical reactionary attitude of the Old Guard while others might see it as pure myopic greed. Who knows? Still, it must be said that the arguments mentioned on the publishing side aren't absurd, though they do center on control and finance (instead of the greater good).

Word Use

O'Reilly Radar > "Hacker" Term misused again

the end, a word means whatever the white rabbit of popular usage says it means.

Not sure what the "white rabbit" reference is (is it a common idiom in English?) but the sentence is quite similar to the classic Humpty Dumpty quote:

'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in a rather scornful tone,' it means just what I choose it to mean – neither more nor less'

Still, the general idea is quite on the target. Words mean by "convention" in that people agree on different meanings for different words. This type of agreement can and does change quite frequently. Some words are more typical of these transformations, especially those words that come to be associated with strong connotations (such as "cool," "hip," "queer," "fresh"...). This runs contrary to the idea some people seem to have that a given word "really means" something very specific and that "improper use," even in normal conversation, is an error on the speaker's part. These are people who take a dictionary definition as a fixed association of word and meaning. Thing is, in many cases, the "error" is as much that of the listener who interprets specific words from a specific framework. And that's staying at the lexical (word-based) level of language, which is rather fluid and only constitutes a fraction of verbal communication. But still... Contrary to most arguments of "they stole our word," this piece is much more subtle. Despite the misleading title, Tim O'Reilly seems to accept that journalists and geeks simply have different uses for the same term. What's particularly interesting is that, as the editor of a book series with "Hacks" in the title ("Google Hacks," "Podcasting Hacks"...), O'Reilly is actively pushing the geeky acception of the term. As more people buy those "Hacks" books, it's quite possible that the positive/neutral connotation of "hacker" in geek culture will be more widely understood. Well, as these books are primarily oriented toward the geekier crowd, chances that the propagation would be minimal. On the other hand, as one commenter mentions, the risk is that would-be buyers for these books are put off by the word hack and will likely not benefit from this "campaign" to "clear the word" from negative connotations. Another interesting thing seems to be that the word "meme" is finding its way in different publications these days. Sure, it's been popular in some circles for a while, with or without references to The Selfish Gene. It's just always funny to notice how some words suddenly become part of a micro-trend. Sometimes, it surfaces for a couple of days and then goes back in our passive vocabulary for a while. In some cases, the origin of the micro-trend is very obvious as when one can see everyone has read the same text. And, as everyone knows so well, it's pretty much impossible to push the propagation of a given word. If it were, marketers and advertisers would have a rather easy job. Well, to combine these last two things. It does seem like Tim O'Reilly and other participants in the Web 2.0 conference use "meme" to refer to word use in a type of "viral marketing." A term which takes a life of its own. Or some such. So, it sounds as if word use, memes, and "hacker" were discussed at Web 2.0. Was Penenberg at Web 2.0?

Google v. Journalism

Wired News: Google's Boycott Misses the Mark Penenberg often has insightful things to say about journalism though he does seem to be, perhaps appropriately, "on the side of journalists" in many respects. In this case, it's hard to take Google's side, despite all the favourable light shining on Google. Plus, it's probably quite true that the privacy concerns won't go away and that Google needs to address them. Given the importance of privacy for most members of the geek/hacker culture with which Google plays so well, one would think that very clear and explicit statements about privacy would be a priority for Google as a tech company. Maybe they're just clumsy with public relations...

Blog Research Gone Native

[As a disclaimer of sorts. Been interested in cultural and social aspects of online activities for a while (since 1993). Never really did in-depth research on any of these issues. Started this blog for fun. Haven't been trying very actively to attract readership to this blog. Haven't been involved in the "community" as much more than a casual observer. Can't really be called an "outsider" but haven't really tried to become an insider.] Many-to-Many: the biases of links Interesting piece of trendspotting on blogging. Many assumptions. Some are explicitly acknowledged (looking for the gender angle). Some are quite general ("bias" is a bad word). Some define a framework (seeing "power" as measure). And yet some, perhaps the most interesting, come from "blogger culture" itself. In terms of ethnography, some would say that danah has "gone native" in the blogger world. Some comments to the blog entry allude to something similar. Interesting embedded evaluations of blogs (not necessarily as good or bad but as successful and unsuccessful). An effect of these assumptions and the inside-looking perspective is that blogging is restricted to one specific model. In that model, one's reasons for blogging are assumed to be "the same as everyone else's," namely to attract readership. Other bloggers seem to make similar assumptions in giving advice to would-be bloggers. A large part of those assumptions can be seen in concepts and ideas that are left undefined. For instance, the "blogroll." Anyone involved in blogging is familiar with the concept and it's definitely an essential part of many blogging practices. To some people, it might in fact distinguish "real" blogging from things like corporate weblogs or blog-like "content management systems" which are not to be confused with real blogs. A real blogger is one who reads other blogs, links to other blogs, knows other bloggers, sends links to Technorati and Del.icio.us, lives in the blogosphere. There's a large number of these in different parts of the world. It does seem that the links between blogs in a given language are stronger than across languages but there are very dense networks of bloggers who seem to represent "The Blogosphere." Still, most people are outside this sphere. It includes people without Internet connections, of course, but it also includes people who write blog entries once in a while. Danah's entry is meant for the members of the 'sphere, not for the occasional weblog writer or reader. This isn't meant as critique or criticism. Just noticed that part of another trend. A trend in blogger identity. The "us/them" of blogging isn't necessarily between reader and writer (as there's a large overlap between the two). It seems to be mostly between "real bloggers" and "mainstream media" along with pseudo-bloggers (like corporate blogs).

(Spoof) Podcast and Self-Support

The Onion | Podcast A Cry For Help

BOZEMAN, MT—The few people close to Mitch Delomme say that he doesn't realize the implications of his new podcast, an agonizingly personal 40-minute digitally recorded capsule of news, information, and trivia about the chronically lonely pizza-delivery man. 'I wanted to share something about myself,' said Delomme, 48, who in the course of his life has been heavily involved in ham and CB radio, personal home-page construction, and participation in late-night community-access cable. Delomme's podcast is currently available on all major subscription links, where it has attracted no attention.

Well, considering some aspects of podcasting, this spoof isn't completely devoid of clue.

(Spoof) Einstein's Performance

'05 Annual Performance Review: Albert Einstein The obvious question: would Albert Einstein be given tenure? It might depend on the location of his appointment. Swiss universities are rather strict in terms of faculty positions.

Science Education

Wired News: Science Labs Don't Measure Up

The review amounts to the latest warning over the state of U.S. science. Business groups representing tens of millions of workers recently announced a campaign to prod the nation into improving its math and science education, wary of slipping U.S. competitiveness.

Do schools in, say, Eastern Europe and South Asia need a tv-show like CSI to motivate students toward sciences?

But the Levy Was Dry

CBC Arts: Apple to give levy back to iPod owners The levy still applies to cassette tapes and blank CDs, right?

Journalism Gone "Glocal"

Open Source: Blog Archive: Hyperlocal Journalism Some interesting ideas from the show, especially on social issues, the power of the local, connections between local and global spheres, changes in mainstream journalism.

"My Search is Bigger than Yours"

Yahoo Announces Total Size Count Also here. Bragging rights, information overload, needle in haystack.

Beer Riot and Sunday Opening

Sunday and evening hours: You can bank on it

Chicago -- the town Billy Sunday couldn't shut down -- always had a tough time keeping the Christian sabbath free of trade. An 1845 Chicago law prohibited taverns from opening on Sundays, but the ban was unpopular with Irish and German immigrants, according to the Encyclopedia of Chicago. When Mayor Levi Boone tried to enforce the law in 1855, it led to the Lager Beer Riot.

Well, there was more to the riot than the schedule issue, but it's interesting to see this take on it.

Respecter la jeunesse acadienne

La planète païenne Texte très optimiste de Gérald Leblanc, artiste acadien qui nous a quitté récemment. Se lit dans ce texte l'optimisme de ceux qui comprennent la force et la beauté d'une génération en plein essor. C'est ça, aussi, se prendre en main.

(Spoof) Ethnic-Sounding Filler

Comedy Central: Radio Billed The Radio Star:

strike fear into the hearts of the Brazilian rainforest musicians that have been blackmailing NPR to be their exclusive provider of ethnic-sounding filler music.

Brasil!

Fair and Balanced Education

Science vs. Norse Mythology Interesting curriculum.

Podcasting and Music Rights

ABC News: Podcasting Spurs a Media 'Land Grab' The main insight in this piece, and the reason it was mentioned in a page about WordPress support for podcasting, is that podcasting can expand greatly if mechanisms for obtaining rights to music broadcasting are facilitated. Thing is, there might be wishful thinking involved as the recording industry has been very reluctant to see the long-term possibilities in changes to their practices.

Searching for Sound

Playlist: Yahoo! Audio Search: It's a start We're pretty much agreed. Will probably not find much use for this search engine in its current form but the concept isn't completely ill-advised. We need good search engines for sound recordings. It might also show that sound files have become quite commonplace outside of unauthorized file sharing. Surprising there's no similar tool in Google Labs...

Acadian Verbal Art

Le Festival de la parole stimule l'intérêt envers l'expression orale Not that it's necessarily unique but it seems to be targeted at a wide audience. A "Speech Festival" bringing verbal art and oral folklore to the fore.

Magritte et droits d'auteur

Ceci n'est pas une pub Situation légèrement touffue au sujet de l'utilisation non-autorisée d'une image de Magritte pour une publicité. On pourrait se demander ce que Magritte lui-même penserait de tout ça.

Disambiguation

Two studies in Psychological Science on disambiguation and related phenomena in speech communication. Which it is it? Say again? Much work has also been done in relation to Sperber and Wilson's "Relevance Theory" which brings together cognition and communication to a broad frame. Sperber and Wilson's Relevance also helps situate some classic research in pragmatics. For those of us who work on the more creative/expressive uses of language, there's this possibility of turning all of these ideas upside-down: ambiguity is a powerful feature of semiotic systems that creators can use to generate heightened significance. In other words, a rapper or a politician may consciously utter ambiguous statements in order to create a more complex "image" in the minds of audience members. And, as per the garden path theory, ambiguous statements require more effort to be understood which, in the case of artful uses of language, might be quite appropriate. Of course, researchers who seek to understand how listeners can make sense of ambiguous messages may treat us as heretic. But, hey, who's afraid of the Spanish Inquisition?

Diet Research

Two unrelated studies. Study finds obesity has effect on disability, not life expectancy, for adults 70 Novel technique offers new look at ancient diet dogma

Educational Podcasting

Educational Weblogs: Podcasting for Education Some educational uses for podcasting. For anyone whose work relates to sound (through music, speech, natural sounds...), podcasting can become a very elegant delivery method. Interviews, which are quite important for ethnographers, are a very wide domain in and of themselves. For lectures, it might be interesting in some cases to use methods to artificially accelerate the speech rate for some people who have better concentration this way. Of course, many instructors would disagree with exclusive use of recorded lectures yet the idea might be that students come to class after listening to the lectures and use class time for deeper discussions. In some cases, it might just work. Again, podcasting is only the convergence of existing technologies, each of which being rather commonplace. It's an interesting intersection of syndication (which may help realize the dreams of '90s "push" technology), compressed audio (especially MP3), "logs" (blogs, etc.), radio (for overall structure), and asynchronous downloads (as opposed to streaming). Some instructors have already made use of podcasting and there's room for exploration. Universities' available bandwidth (especially on-campus) and the pre-targeted content make the most difficult aspects of podcasting relatively unimportant.

Local to Global: Broadband Wireless as Basic Utility

Policy DevCenter: Will Congress Ban Municipal WiFi? Some of this is US-specific and much is happening in the US and elsewhere in terms of municipalities taking their destinies in their own hands. At this point, it does seem clear that broadband access is almost as important as landline telephone access and postal service. Of course, broadband access may greatly benefit remote areas because telecommuting is possible for a number of people. In fact, this can apply, to a certain extent, to some parts of Africa. Broadband wireless (or wired) brings the local to the global. Think Glocal! [Yup! The term's ugly but the concept's neat.]

Local to Global: Broadband Wireless as Basic Utility

Policy DevCenter: Will Congress Ban Municipal WiFi? Some of this is US-specific and much is happening in the US and elsewhere in terms of municipalities taking their destinies in their own hands. At this point, it does seem clear that broadband access is almost as important as landline telephone access and postal service. Of course, broadband access may greatly benefit remote areas because telecommuting is possible for a number of people. In fact, this can apply, to a certain extent, to some parts of Africa. Broadband wireless (or wired) brings the local to the global. Think Glocal! [Yup! The term's ugly but the concept's neat.]

Autochtones et pensionnats

Pensionnats: les Autochtones exigent réparation Un aspect relativement méconnu de l'histoire des rapports entre Autochtones et gouvernement. Ceux qui ont vécu cette période ont beaucoup à dire sur la question. Ce serait bien d'au moins les écouter.

Conflits à l'OSM

OSM: Québec et Montréal invités à s'impliquer En fait, c'est pas nouveau, les conflits à l'OSM. Dutoit lui-même a fait sa part d'ennemis à l'époque. La Guilde des musiciennes et musiciens du Québec a eu elle-même une histoire assez tumultueuse mais il est possible qu'elle soit maintenant plus à même de traiter ce genre de situation.

Système de support entre immigrantes

Les immigrantes francophones s'entraident au Nouveau-Brunswick Assez vague comme article mais un principe intéressant. Dans plusieurs coins du monde, y compris plusieurs parties de l'Afrique, l'existence d'un système de support est primordiale. À Moncton, une grande partie des immigrants sont d'origines africaines, surtout parmi les étudiants de l'Université de Moncton. Chose à noter, ces systèmes de support se bâtissent par les gens eux-mêmes en fonction de leurs besoins et de leurs méthodes. Un peu le principes des «tontines» à certains endroits. Aussi intéressant de noter l'accent mis sur les femmes. Beaucoup d'Africaines savent vraiment se prendre en main.

Policy and "Culture"

Ahmadinejad says his government will adopt cultural look for administration - Irna Erm... How do they define "culture" in this case? Is it a common thing in West Asia to think of "culture" in these terms? Or just in Iran? That could be very illuminating.

City Rivalry?

TheStar.com - Editorial: Urban gamesmanship Usually, rivalries between cities are a Big Thing for the smaller one and a rather inconsequential one for the bigger one. Between Montreal and Toronto, the Greater Toronto Area being larger than Metropolitan Montreal, it seems to be the reverse, to a certain extent. This example is as telling as the others:

Let us spell it out for you, Montreal: We want the Games and we would put on a great Olympic spectacle.

This follows a few comments by Montreal mayor Gérald Tremblay that, given the success of the FINA games, putting Montreal's candidacy for the 2016 Olympic Games might be worth a thought. Reaction from Toronto thus seems a bit strong for something that is much of a "pie in the sky" concept at this point. One could say something similar about Ontario's recent bid for the Shriner's hospital. Or this article (also from the Toronto Star) trying to compare Toronto and Montreal. This is not to say that there aren't Montrealers who are envious of Toronto. But mainstream media in Montreal (at least in French) don't seem to harp on the Mtl/TO rivalry so much. Or maybe it just depends on where you go for information. On the other hand, the rivalry between Montreal and Quebec City seems to have taken a new style. Since hockey isn't the stage for Quebec confrontations, most comments by Montrealers about Quebec City now have to do with the provincial capital being little diverse and rather intolerant. Apart from those occasions, discussions about Quebec City are quite rare in Montreal. On the other hand, some people in Quebec City seem to carry a grudge against Montreal which, they claim, dominates the scene too much. Not unusual a rivalry but certainly an asymmetric one, much like the one between, say, any big city in the Northeastern United States and New York City. William Labov had some interesting things to say about this. Fascinating. Really.

Across Partisan Lines

Salon.com | Look in the mirror, Mr. President Some people do cross the lines of partisan politics.

Teaching Patterns

Are there national patterns of teaching? People still talk about national culture? And how about patterns of learning? Didn't RTFA. It might be quite interesting but this description sounds rather simplistic.

Air Guitar

Telegraph: Academic takes PhD in art of air guitar The article itself is quite dismissive and there's been an even more adverse reaction from a few academics elsewhere. Isn't it sad when a person's research is evaluated without being read? The topic itself is quite fascinating in terms of the sociology of music with connections with gendered perceptions of the body, gestural analysis, and musicking. Let's hope not everyone is so dismissive of the subject matter.

Archéo au Québec

Radio-Canada.ca: Dans les entrailles d'un Québec disparu Intéressant de voir autant d'événements liés à l'archéologie au Québec. Un engouement? Qui sait, ce genre d'événement peut encore augmenter le nombre d'inscriptions en anthropologie...

Current TV

Wired News: Gore's Webby TV Network Debuts Sounds a bit like ZeD. One of the advantages of ZeD is that it's online community is rather active and artists do seem to submit their stuff. The whole TV vs. 'Net issue is still unraveling. With broadband, digital video recording, good compression schemes for video (H.264 looks pretty cool) and, maybe, new business models, online video content is becoming quite enticing. At the same time, television content has shifted away from some of the older formats such as daytime soaps and "sitcoms," putting more emphasis on contests and "reality shows." In such a context, personalised video content, vlogging (video blogging), and art videos may eventually make their way to mainstream television.

Australien perdu

The World Today - Montreal: a tale of two cities

The only problem is actually working out where I am. I've been working for about 10 minutes and I'm too ashamed of my French to ask anybody. None of the signs seem to make much sense either.

En fait, il aurait probablement pu demander en anglais...

So... "Culture" is a Bad Word?

Jon Stewart interviews Rick Santorum From the perspective of a cultural anthropologist, some intriguing bits in that interview, including interpretations of the history of "natural marriage" and notions of the State's involvement in people's lives. A lucky thing is that despite a wide gap in point of view (which we might be able to intepret throught the so-called "Culture Wars") the participants in the interview managed to hold a respectful honest debate. Nice to see such a thing, even if it has to come from a fake news show.

Why Be Popular? (Podcast Rankings)

Playlist: Apple changes podcast rankings Thing is, the very notion of ranking podcasts (or voting for them) seems to run against one of podcasting's most interesting feature, related to the Long Tail principle. Specialized podcasts with few subscribers are as much part of the "success story" as those so-called "mainstream podcasts" which often attempt to mimmic the ways attitudes of mainstream radio from the US. When you add the problem with bandwidth for small popular podcasts, it seems that being an obscure podcast only catering to a few like-minded people is the way to go as opposed to having the podcast with the most buzz. Oh, but, yes, right, they're thinking in this mindframe of eyeballs and eardrums. "The more listeners you get, the better your advertising revenues will be." "What? Don't have advertising yet? Well, this is your chance, got a great deal for you!" Talk about reification...

Technology for Audiophiles?

The Register: Olive conducts Symphony for classical music fans Quite interesting concept. Let's hope it doesn't deceive and/or that other companies will offer similar products. Was talking to a composer friend a couple of months ago about audio technology and sound quality. It can be a fascinating subject. "Fidelity" or audio quality isn't simply about "resolution" (as in sampling rate and bit depth). Fans of Western Art Music are probably more likely than other music listeners to be attracted to this type of technology but not all audiophiles are restricted to Western Art Music. There might be a more general principle about taste, these days. Refinement in taste that doesn't necessarily go with condescension. Actually, open-mindedness and refined taste can make a very powerful mix. In music, in food, in life.