infonet

I had seen a few references in circulation but couldn’t quite manage to replay the film in head until reading this excellent but cringe-inducing analysis from Frank Swain.
The essay underscores how life imitates art, and rather than living in that under-privileged but blissful unawares computer simulation, we are in fact relegated to a rather bleak vision of 2017 from three decades hence—The Running Man. Complete with the billing of actors turn politicians in Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jesse Venture and a game-show host more powerful than the president (now even more ironic considering that Schwarzenegger has been appointed Trump’s under-study as reality television-show master of ceremonies), the film is an uncanny reflection of our gladiatorial appetites. Even the technological state of affairs with the infonet and the infonet of things held up pretty well.  What do you think? Perhaps we’ve not crossed the threshold to blood-lust and public execution of society’s maladroits but virtual sticks and stones and teapot tempests are certainly not that far behind and are effective ways to placate and manipulate the home-audience.

choosy moms choose jif

On the fifth of November, 1999 an auto-de-fé was proclaimed in order to rid the emerging on-line environment of an image file format (.gif) that most considered to be clunky and unsuited for facilitating the quick transfer of information.
First invented in 1987, this lossless (uncompromised, except for richness of colour) yet compressible image extension was the industry standard yet showed no potential that it would ever be the rendering for anything but static pictures and was being pressed aside by one lobby or another—even the idea of a “GIF tax” was being proposed to banish the Graphic Interchange Format, the bailiwick of Compuserve and Netscape. The cinemagraph, the parlour-trick that’s best suited for what we think of as GIFs nowadays in conjunction with browser protocols and later the looping video clip, was not perfected until 2011 but would have probably never materialised unless it had been allowed to incubate, maybe selfishly, during the intervening decades. Read all about the history and development of the GIF and get a primer on how image compression algorithms work in Popular Mechanics article at the link up top.

MCMLXXXVII or the dream sequence always rings twice

When one tries to parse the year 2013, it seems a bit unremarkable from the perspective of numerology—not a prime number and a reprieve from twelve years of red-letter repeating dates, 12.12.12, 08.08.08. It is no grand cycle within a cycle but counting conventions do make this year hark back to a yesteryear, 1987, the last time a year was expressed with four different numerals—which is a little weird when one thinks about it. What primers and refreshers took place back then and what nascent things happened all those years ago that became emergent and formative? Western hostages were taken in Lebanon and the Iran-Contra Affair Commission scrutinizes the prosecution of US foreign policy. The Unabomber is terrorizing America. U2 released the album Joshua Tree, and Michael Eisner and Jacques Chirac close the deal for the construction of Euro Disneyland. The Simpson characters first appeared as an animated short on the Tracey Ullman Show. A 19 year old West German pilot created an imaginary bridge to the East by landing his plane in Moscow’s Red Square.
Margaret Thatcher’s Conservative government in the UK continues its reign and Ronald Reagan, from West Berlin, implores Mikhail Gorbachev to “tear down that Wall.” The accords of the European Community, forerunner to the EU, were debated and codified. Michael Jackson records the album Bad. The laboratories at Los Alamos host the first conference on the topic of artificial intelligence and bionic life, and Star Trek: The Next Generation debuted in syndication. Free trade agreements were struck for North America and the first national Coming-Out day is celebrated in Washington, DC. Medicine first describes and diagnoses what is called chronic fatigue syndrome, and ater his death, mathematician Kurt Gödel publishes his ontological proof for the existence of God. The live drama of a little girl who fell down a well in Midland, Texas captivates audiences with its televised, point-for-point coverage (other iconic portrayals on TV included Max Headroom, the precursors to reality-shows like Unsolved Mysteries and Rescue 911 and the salad days of Remington Steel, Falcon Crest, Dallas, Moonlighting, Matlock, MacGuyver, Golden Girls, Designing Women and Pee-Wee’s Playhouse). The Black Monday stock market crash sends markets tumbling, just after the Dow reached the heights of 2500 points. A high speed rail network in France and Germany breaks records, and Romanian workers revolt against the regime of Ceauşescu. Windows version 2.0 is released, as is the first Final Fantasy computer game, and the US Food and Drug Administration approves the use of the anti-depressant Prozac. The world had to say goodbye to such luminaries as Liberace, Rita Hayworth, Fred Astaire, Lee Marvin, Maria von Trapp, Mary Astor and Danny Kaye. There are of course many other iconic moments of the year, which waxed and waned into fulfillment in the fullness that characterizes any year and successor events, and I am not sure how the retreat into all things retro, just beyond the easy grasp of recorded experience, resonates through to today. That year is not the template for this one, certainly, but we would be amiss to forget the past and not try to jostle up some clues, dreamy and distant, about where we are today and what the numbers might hold for us.

encounter at farpoint

One of my favourite bloggers, Bob Canada, presents a very thoughtful and well- constructed anniversary tribute to Star Trek: The Next Generation, which premiered on 29 September 1987, exactly twenty-five years ago today. It is hard to believe it has been that long ago and does make it seem like something’s a-miss with the whole space-time continuum.

klaxon or a bird that swims, a fish that sings

Arriving home from work, I found stuffed in our mailbox along with other advertising circulars and the local weeklies, a paper from the Rathaus of Bad Karma issuing a flood-warning to all residents.  Persistant rains and melting snow posed a risk for rising waters.  I proceeded to do as the paper advised and trundled a few items I thought were prone to damage, though no one wants to find a soggy and dank basement, out of the cellar and raised the rest, a few boxes of forgotten miscellany on stools and chairs.  One thing I grabbed were posters rolled in tubes.  Though not presently displayed in our house, I know one was of this concert poster from the Blow Monkeys, during their 1987 European tour.  One many not think that they know the band, but in fact nearly everyone does as they performed a few of the cover songs in the movie soundtrack of Dirty Dancing.  Advisements like this are something definitely to make one anxious, though I strongly suspect we will be fine, but it is a terrible thought to entertain, that the strata of random things that one does not see everyday might be ruined.  I hope everyone is faring well and weathering the neep tide, hale and healthy and with their basement-collections intact.