Another book

John Gilliom and Torin Monahan, SuperVision: An Introduction to Surveillance Society (2013, Chicago). A terrific undergraduate intro text to surveillance issues. Wish I was teaching a surveillance studies class this Spring.

New books

From Routledge:

James Elkins, What Photography Is (2010). A long dialogue with Barthes’ Camera Lucida.

Anthony Elliott and John Urry (2010). Mobile Lives.

Christian Fuchs, Kees Boersma, Anders Albrechtslund and Marisol Sandoval (eds) (2012) Internet and Surveillance: The Challenges of Web 2.0 and Social Media.

Joseph Pugliese (2010) Biometrics: Bodies, Technologies, and Biopolitics.

Jonathan Sterne (ed) (2012). The Sound Studies Reader.

Trebor Scholz (ed) (2013) Digital Labor: The Internet as Playground and Factory.

Other presses:

 

Jonathan Sterne (2012). MP3: The Meaning of a Format (Duke)

Sarah Kember and Joanna Zylinska (2012) Life After New Media: Mediation as Vital Process. (MIT).

Flow Column on Google Glass

My first column for flowtv.org was published. It's on Google Glass and the Clickable World.

The Quad

The picture above is of the Quad Cinemas, as it looked back in the 1970s. The Quad was located in the Makati Commercial Center in Manila, Philippines. This was one of two movie theaters in the Commercial Center. The other was the Rizal Theater, which was a beautiful theater but has since been torn down. Both of these were within walking distance of our house. I first saw "Jaws" crouched in an aisle of one of the Quad cinemas (the show was over sold), which was just as well since I could quickly find something to block my gaze if a particularly gruesome scene appeared. I am sure that I have forgotten most of the films we saw in this theater, but they ranged from "Sound of Music" (where the woman who was supposed to be staffing the ticket window was late, but they started the movie anyway, and Maria was already off the mountain by the time the ticketseller rushed, breathless into the booth and we dashed upstairs to the theater) to a Herbie film or two to "The Other Side of the Mountain." I'm pretty sure we saw "Capricorn One" here and "Damnation Alley," but I can't be sure.

The Rizal Theater was a little nicer [here's a link to a picture and someone's memories], and I recall that they actually installed "Sensurround" and so we saw "Battlestar Galactica" in the theater in Sensurround there (yes, it was also a TV show, but it showed in cinemas in Sensurround), and I think "Earthquake" too. I also remember seeing "Grease" here. I can't remember which theater showed "Saturday Night Fever," however.

Anyway, not sure if much, if anything, is left of the Quad Cinemas. I believe they were connected up with a massive mall the engulfed much of that end of the MCC, and may have been torn down amidst multiple renovations.

The photo above is courtesy of Emer “Boboy” Remulla, who had posted it to an alumni newsletter for the International School Manila. It's used with permission.

Rocket Ship Galileo

Following on the heels of my last post, I just got in the mail an absolutely beautiful copy of Robert Heinlein's Rocket Ship Galileo.

This was Heinlein's first published novel, and the first of his juveniles. It was published in 1947. This, technically, is a first edition, but a later printing (much later, like 1967!). It's in Scribner's Library Binding, but unusually it doesn't look like it was circulated in a library (no library markings, no card pocket, no signs of wear or handling). It's in wonderful condition. Check out the inner cover and how bright the colors are:

First printings of the first edition of this book [those actually printed in 1947] sell for $2,500+ easily (my copy was much much much much less, believe me). But I must say that if I had over two grand to spend on a book, it wouldn't be a Heinlein. But that's me.

Now, the trick is: how to read this thing without messing it up!

Orphans of the Sky

I have been on the hunt for juvenile science fiction. Now, now! I know there are those who would say that ALL science fiction is juvenile--but I am not one of those. I was looking for something besides The Wonderful Flight to the Mushroom Planet books that I enjoyed as a kid, and am passing down to my kids. I remembered reading a lot of science fiction pitched at kids when I was growing up. This was before I discovered Ray Bradbury and the Martian Chronicles and moved into "grown up" sci fi. But anyway, I had only vague recollections of what that early science fiction was--lots about space cadets and such. Then I remembered that many were by Robert A. Heinlein, so that started a search for these. He wrote a whole series of books for Scribner's for what were then called juveniles and are now called "Young Adults."  Orphans of the Sky, pictured above, actually is not one of them.

In reading through the detailed summaries of Heinlein's juvenile books (on wikipedia), none really rang a bell. But I remembered a book that took place on a ship on a long voyage--so long that the passengers forgot that they were on a voyage or even on a ship; the ship was the world. The gravity was near zero by the outer decks, but full gravity in the inner levels where farms were. I recalled the differences in gravity, and a scene where a character stares out at the stars for the first time.  That's all I remembered. Turns out, it was Orphans of the Sky.

So I ordered a copy (first edition, ex library, pictured above) and am about halfway through--a breezy read, very much of its era (1940s and 1950s; the book is actually two novellas, previously published, that were published as one volume under this title in the early 1960s). I actually seem to recall very little of the story itself (how could I have forgotten the guy with two heads!).

When I've been buying some of these books, like the Mushroom Planet books, from my youth, I gravitate towards ex-library copies. They recall the copies I read; have a soft, lived in, feel. And I love how the copy I have of Orphans of the Sky, from a High School library in Idaho, still has its pocket for the check-out card, including patron signatures. It's a quaint nostalgia. Dead media.

And soon, on to collect the other early Heinleins. Rocket Ship Galileo, Podkayne of Mars...

[I should point out that I'm not recommending this book for children; at the very least because of how it treats women (terribly)]

The Mobile Wave

As part of my recent splurge of buying mobile media books, I also picked up Michael Saylor's The Mobile Wave (2012, Vanguard), to see what the corporate booster take on all this might be. I had seen it mentioned in a recent emailling from EPIC, which mentioned that the book ignores issues of privacy. Anyway, Saylor's idea is how everything will change given mobile technologies. I've only just dipped in to Saylor's book, but it's already rife with the discourse of technological inevitability (it's coming, get used to it); even the use of "wave" makes it seem a natural phenomenon. And, of course, there's the technological neutrality ("These fundamental forces can either be harnessed for good or bad" p. xi). None of which I'm surprised to see.

But the clearest clue about what direction much of the book may take was made clear early on when he is giving the example of how iTunes "reinvented music" and changed the industry. "Between 2003 and 2007, more than 2,700 record stores vanished, freeing up real estate and capital that could be used for other things" (p. 7). Well, that's one way of looking at the loss of 2,700 businesses. Good thing we got rid of all those fuddy duddy record stores that were standing in the way of new development and investment. Think of what we can do with that mallspace or old store fronts.

On to the rest of the book.

Another new Mobile Media books

Just received Shaun Moores' Media, Place & Mobility (2012, Palgrave). Add this to the previous list.

Logless

New post over in the ever-neglected Clickable World blog of mine, including (gasp!) fiction. You are warned.

New Mobile Media Books

I'm really enjoying two new books just out from Routledge: Studying Mobile Media: Cultural Technologies, Mobile Communication, and the iPhone (2012 Routledge) edited by Larissa Hjorth, Jean Burgess, and Ingrid Richardson, and Mobile Technology and Place (2012, Routledge), edited by Rowan Wilken and Gerard Goggin. Too bad they aren't more affordable (hardbacks, library prices; these are library copies). Both are excellent examples of an Australian cottage industry of sorts on mobile media research that Goggin and Hjorth seem central to.

On this latter point, see:
Goggin and Hjorth (eds) Mobile Technologies: From Telecommunications to Media (Routledge, 2009).
Hjorth, Mobile Media in the Asia-Pacific: Gender and the Art of Being Mobile (Routledge, 2011).
Hjorth, Games and Gaming: An Introduction to New Media (Berg, 2011).
Hjorth and Dean Chan, Gaming Cultures and Place in Asia-Pacific (Routledge, 2006).
Goggin, Global Mobile Media (Routledge, 2010).
Goggin, Cellphone Culture: Mobile Technology and Everyday Life (Routledge, 2006).
Goggin, New Technologies and the Media (Palgrave Macmillan, 2012), which is a wonderful new book on how traditional media (esp. journalism and broadcasting) are changing in the face of emerging technologies and practices of new media.
Goggin and Mark McLelland (eds) Internationalizing Internet Studies (Routledge, 2008).

and others.

Combined with the almost as prolific work of Adriana de Souza e Silva (Mobile Interfaces in Public Spaces, 2012 with Jordan Frith; Net Locality, 2011, with Eric Gordon; and Digital Cityscapes, 2009 with Daniel Sutko), that's quite a subdiscipline emerging. And add to that Jason Farman's new award winning Mobile Interface Theory: Embodied Space and Locative Media (Routledge, 2012), and others, we're seeing a significant boom of research on mobility, locality, media, and computing in just a few years. It's hard to keep up with it all.

In any case, I'm looking forward to using both Daniel Palmer's and Chris Chesher's essays from the iPhone book in my semiotics class this Fall.

Tintin + Lovecraft

A couple of years ago, a Scottish artist, Murray Groat (aka Muzki) produced a great series of faux Tintin covers, based on H.P. Lovecraft stories. I just stumbled across these. Given how proprietorial (if that's a word) the Herge folks are, it's not surprising that they cannot be found anymore on Muzki's site, though other resourceful bloggers have posted them. Needless to say, I find these quite amusing and creative.

E-Book

Cultural Globalization: A User's Guide is also available as an e-book. Just found out. Also just got notification from SAGE publishers that my first book, Exploring Technology and Social Space will be converted to e-format, too.

New Books

Gerard Goggin (2012) New Technologies and the Media (Palgrave)
Adriana de Souza e Silva and Jordan Frith (2012) Mobile Interfaces in Public Spaces: Locational Privacy, Control, and Urban Socialibility (Routledge)
Richard Coyne (2010) The Tuning of Place: Sociable Spaces and Pervasive Digital Media (MIT) Paul Dourish and Genevieve Bell (2011) Divining a Digital Future: Mess and Mythology in Ubiquitous Computing (MIT)
Lee Rainie and Barry Wellman (2012) Networked: The New Social Operating System (MIT)
Jussi Parikka (2012) What is Media Archeology? (Polity)
Paul Virilio (2012) The Great Accelerator (Polity)
Howard Rheingold (2012) Net Smart: How to Thrive Online. (MIT)
Jason Farman (2012) Mobile Interface Theory: Embodied Space and Locative Media (Routledge)
Ian Bogost (2012) Alien Phenomenology, or what it’s like to be a thing (Minnesota)

Now, I just hope to get the time to read all these someday...

New Surveillance Facility

April 2012: WIRED's cover story:
http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2012/03/ff_nsadatacenter/

Good grief!

Pigeon-Cams!

I love this: Carrier Pigeons with cameras strapped to them were used as surveillance devices in WWI. The pictures are fantastic; not just the pictures of the Pigeon Paparazzi but the images from the pigeon's POV. The one where the left and right wingtips have just curved into view on a down-sweep of wings is really nice.

Total Surveillance and Authoritarian Governments

New report out from the Center for Technology Innovation at Brookings about how the declining price of electronic data storage will enable authoritarian regimes the ability to create and maintain extensive records for each of their citizens, including location data, CCTV images, email and web-browsing histories, and so on. Rather than looking at extensive and pervasive surveillance capabilities and projects, the report focuses on how storage costs for all this information is relatively cheap, enabling the creation of more extensive dossiers. Such a record will allow regimes to "retroactively eavesdrop" on citizens, tracing their activities back years. This has chilling implications for any form of dissent in such a country.
http://www.brookings.edu/papers/2011/1214_digital_storage_villasenor.aspx

New Post

Over next door in the much neglected Clickable World blog.http://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif

Stasi surveillance photos

From the New York Times.

taxes

So, frustrated with the recent budget deal which is all cuts and no revenue gains, I actually wrote to my elected representatives telling them that they should do something brave and raise taxes on the wealthiest Americans. Unfortunately my Senators are Kyl and McCain, so you know how far *that's* going. Got a response from Kyl (a boilerplate email, which I'll paste below), but nothing so far from McCain. Then today Warren Buffet posts an editorial in the New York Times saying, "tax the rich!" A nice counterpoint to Kyl, I thought. However, Kyl is on the Supercongress and Buffet is not.

Kyl's response:

Dear Dr. Wise:



Thank you for your recent email suggesting that Congress address the deficit crisis by raising taxes on the wealthy.



Our income-tax system is already the most progressive in the world, according to economists from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development ("Growing Unequal? Income Distribution and Poverty in OECD Countries," Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, 2008). The top 10 percent of U.S. taxpayers pay a larger share of the income tax burden than do the top 10 percent in any other industrialized country, including traditionally "high tax" countries such as France, Italy, and Sweden.



Internal Revenue Service figures show that the top 10 percent of taxpayers in our country pay nearly 70 percent of the income taxes. The top one percent pay 38 percent of income taxes – that's a larger share of the income-tax burden than the bottom 90 percent combined. And it's not as if taxes on the wealthy haven't already been increased substantially. During his short time in office, President Obama has already signed nearly $1 trillion worth of tax increases into law.



So the first question is this: if the wealthiest 10 percent pay 70 percent of income taxes now, how much more do you want them to pay? Do you really think they'll keep on working and investing if out of every additional dollar they earn, they have to pay as much as 80 percent or 90 percent to the government?



Second, if the president succeeds in raising the tax rate on the top two brackets, small businesses would be hit hard (remember, most small businesses are not corporations; they pay taxes as individuals, and 50 percent of small business income is earned by taxpayers in the top two brackets). Therefore, any attempt to "soak the rich" would hurt these small businesses and their employees. If our goal is to promote economic recovery and get Americans back to work, we certainly aren't going to succeed by imposing higher taxes on these already-struggling businesses and their workers.



It was John F. Kennedy who said, "an economy hampered by restrictive tax rates will never produce enough revenues to balance our budget – just as it will never produce enough jobs or enough profits...in short, it is a paradoxical truth that tax rates are too high today and tax revenues are too low and the soundest way to raise the revenues in the long run is to cut the rates now." Accordingly, President Kennedy's tax-cut plan slashed both the capital-gains rate and top income-tax rate; between 1961 and 1968, the inflation-adjusted economy grew by over 42 percent and revenues grew by 62 percent. We saw similar positive results after the Reagan tax cuts of the 1980s.



The fact is, the best way to raise revenues is to grow the economy and put people back to work, not impose punitive tax rates on American families and small businesses.



Third, attempts to raise taxes on "millionaires and billionaires" are likely to hit many Americans who earn far less than that. There are about 319,000 households that report income over $1 million annually. However, the number of returns subject to the top two income-tax rates – the rates the president would raise – is 3.6 million. The point is this: when the president aims at millionaires and billionaires, he will hit 3.6 million people. That's also what happened as a result of the Alternative Minimum Tax. When it was enacted in 1969, it was meant to apply to just about 155 high-income households, according to then-Treasury Secretary Joseph Barr. Last year, it hit nearly 25 million households, and that number continues to grow.



Additionally, our problem is spending, not taxes. It is spending that has been driving our debt sky high, from 20.7 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2008 – about the 40-year historical average – to 24.1 percent of GDP this year. It's because of spending on things like the president's failed "stimulus" bill and Obamacare, as well as generous increases for numerous government programs.



A final point: we've seen what happens when Congress is asked to increase taxes in exchange for deep spending cuts. The tax increases are immediate and permanent, while the spending cuts almost never materialize. As Stephen Moore and Richard Vedder wrote in a November 2010 column in The Wall Street Journal: "Over the entire post World War II era through 2009 each dollar of new tax revenue was associated with $1.17 of new spending. Politicians spend the money as fast as it comes in – and a little bit more." How many times will we be asked to fall for this ruse?



I oppose the president's demand for job-killing tax increases. Congress should instead adopt significant spending cuts, entitlement reforms, and systemic changes that will constrain spending in the future.



Sincerely,





JON KYL

United States Senator



P.S. If you wish to share additional comments about this or any other matter, please visit my website at: http://www.kyl.senate.gov/contact.cfm. Do not reply to this email.

Farewell to a trusted companion

Finally retiring a key component of my assemblage, my scaffolding: my conference bag from ICA Korea (2002), which has lasted almost 10 years but has finally fallen too far into disrepair. I've loved its affordances (always space to have an umbrella handy; lots of room for papers and books; pockets for change, paperclips, business cards; durable and light). Best of all: it was a conference freebie (unless you count the cost of the plane ticket to Korea, conference fee, and hotel; then it was a pricey bag).

And, here's the new guy:



Hoping this one lasts at least as long as the last one.