a thaumaturgical compendium

If I ever amass a huge fortune and go a little nuts and become a superhero, it will be as squidman. Bats may be survivors, but a squid will mess you up:

“Squids can be aggressive, whimsical, suddenly mean, and they are always hungry,” said Herb Waite, co-author and professor of biology at UC Santa Barbara. “You wouldn’t want to be diving next to one. A dozen of them could eat you, or really hurt you a lot.” The creatures are very fast and swim by jet propulsion.

I realize this has already been posted everywhere, but it is the coolest thing I’ve seen in a long time, so I’ll put it here in case you haven’s seen it yet:

I’ve written my own advice to students seeking a Ph.D. Here is Norbert Wiener’s, from 1954 (The Human Use of Human Beings, p.133-4):

Properly speaking, the artist, the writer, and the scientist should be moved by such an irresistible impulse to create that, even if they were not being paid for their work, they would be willing to pay to get the chance to do it. However, we are in a period in which forms have largely superseded educational content and one which is moving toward an ever-increasing thinness of educational content. It is now considered perhaps more a matter of social prestige to obtain a higher degree and follow what may be regarded as a cultural career, than a matter of any deep impulse.

[...]

I mean merely that if the thesis is not in fact such an overwhelming task, it should at least be in intention the gateway to vigorous creative work. Lord only knows there are enough problems yet to be solved, books to be written, and music to be composed! Yet for all but a very few, the path to these lies through the performance of perfunctory tasks which in nine cases out of ten have no compelling reason to be performed. Heaven save us from the first novels which are written because a young man desires the prestige of being a novelist rather than because he has something to say! Heaven save us likewise from the mathematical papers which are correct and elegant but without body or spirit. Heaven save us above all from the snobbery which not only admits the possibility of this thin and perfunctory work, but which cries out in a spirit of shrinking arrogance against the competition of vigor and ideas, wherever these may be found!

In other words, when there is communication without need for communication, merely so that someone may earn the social and intellectual prestige of becoming a priest of communication, the quality and communicative value of the message drop like a plummet…

Do you want to see this man as the next president of the United States. Send $15—the price of a cup of coffee in Amsterdam, if you can find anyone who will take your dollars—to help his campaign. Given that he is up against two candidates who are in bed with lobbyists, he is relying on us to be his lobbyists.

This is so cool. Yes, Melodyne has been around for a while, saving vocalists from their own flatness. But what really makes this interesting is what it means for samples. It’s hard enough now to detect the use of a sample, as it is folded, spun, and mutilated. But at what point does it stop being a sample. Obviously, the phrasing of the original instrument remains important, but at some point, you’ve chopped the original up so much that it isn’t really a “sample” any more at all?

I mean, if you “sample” a paragraph from a book, and don’t cite it, you’ve clearly plagiarized, but when you take single words from someone, you clearly haven’t. Musical notes are not as discrete as words—the phrasing of a note by a violinist, or even by a pianist is fairly unique—but once you get down to the note-by-note level, it starts to feel a lot less like sampling.

I just googled a mis-spelling of my name. No, this isn’t something I do every day. Google seems to have done away with many of their spelling corrections. It used to be, if you Googled the word “colour,” it asked if you meant color—something I pointed out in the draft of my search engines book. Unfortunately, Google has fixed this (bastards!). I haven’t decided whether to leave the reference and note that it was historically true (probably), or if I’ll yank the whole discussion.

Anyway, in this process, I was trying to trigger the spellchecker to come in, so I used “Halavis” which, in the past, has led to a suggestion of the correct spelling: a pretty nifty thing for someone who gets his name messed up often. Unfortunately, it does not make that suggestion any more. Despite “Halavis” being the name of an Argentinian textile manufacturer, and a rare surname, most of the links in the first few pages of Google results are references to me. So, I tried another common mis-spelling—Havalais—with the same result.

Now, on the one hand, I am not one of those people who gets overly upset when people can’t say my name, or spell it. Frankly, I am just happy that most of the time they have something nice to say about me. Heck, I’m even happy when they have something not-so-nice to say, since I’m glad to have people disagree with me. When my former chair, after five years in the same department, still introduced me as “Havalais,” I may have inwardly winced slightly, but it really wasn’t a big deal, I thought.

But as I look over the list of “Halavis,” I wonder whether he is better known than I am. And more importantly, I wonder whether so many references to my mis-spelled name encourages its continued growth. If you think to yourself “I read this article by Lackaff and whats-his-name” and a Google search yields “Halavis,” not once, but multiple times. When the journal Serials Librarian spells it that way, as does a recent co-author on her vita, and any number of my students, does it mean I should be more vigilant in defending (the spelling of) my name? Should I be “that guy” who gets huffy when people mangle his name? Or better yet, should I just go the “Sting” route and start going by just “Alex” or maybe “Alex H” or “Alex the Amorphous”?

Remember when MoveOn did the “Bush in 30 Seconds” contest last time around? Now they are hosting a competition for political ads for Obama. The winner gets her ad aired on national TV, and a nice chunk of change to buy more equipment. And, you know, a chance to convince some people to vote for Obama. Looking forward to seeing what comes of this!