Microsoft Sells Windows 7 Starter… But Who’s Buying?

Stories circulate around the net discussing Microsoft’s announcement that it will sell a Windows 7 Starter Edition. The main catch: you can only run 3 programmes at once. Clearly, they are aiming to sell this piece of … something … on note-/netbooks. I was wondering – who will buy it? And after some (lengthy) thinking, I came to the conclusion that some people definitely will. Not because it’s so stupidly restricted, not because it’s the newest, most secure version (7 – who came up with that numbering all of a sudden, hahhaha!), and not because it contains some astonishing new functionality. They will buy it simply because they are afraid of the unknown. It’s difficult to have worked in a Windows environment for years and years and suddenly change to something else, like Linux, or BSD, or Android (which seems to be Google-speak for Linux on mobile devices). We’re all human and afraid of the blind spots on our maps, at least a bit. That’s why MS has us.

Machinery sings “Bohemian Rhapsody”

Offworld, for no apparent reason, boasts these crazy videos quite often lately. As I write this, I am listening to a rendition of Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody” done by ingenuously programmed old computer hardware. I wonder what would Freddie think if he could hear this – it took him years to even start using an analog synthesizer. Anyway, have fun with the machines’ (often sweetly failing) attempt at a cover.

The Origin of the Flame Wars

I had no idea that the Flame Wars actually started in such a silly manner, but this video clears up all deliberate misinformation and unscientific misconceptions. Enjoy! (via BoingBoing)

The Agonist’s Second Album / Women in Metal

I’ve heard the new The Agonist album, Lullabies for the Dormant Mind, several times since its release at the end of February. They have definitely managed to make a big step in terms of development. One of the things I hate a lot is when a young band hurries to repeat itself in its second album – and this is surely not what The Agonist have done here. Lullabies for the Dormant Mind contains more layers of bizarre harmonies, more extreme vocals, more crazy song structures with numerous surprises, more deadly anger and a more consistent approach to all of this. The design of the album and the way the band present themselves in promotion show a coherent, thought-out concept with all those psychotic girls mischievously playing this and that while the moon watches on. Comparisons with Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (despite the name of the band’s singer) would be way off the mark, however; what we have here is a rather dark, warped look at familiar human topics. Alissa White-Gluz continues to combine her vegan/straight-edge sensibilities with obliterating commentary on nasty people – but also contributes excellent screaming, growling, singing, shouting, and chanting (in a somewhat sombre, surreal a capella rendition of a central theme from Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake). The men in the band play in a very water-tight manner, weaving hard, tough strands of riffage throughout, and shocking the listener with expert time signature changes and vibrant, unexpected interplay between their instrument parties. A lot of winding soundscapes criss-crossing at impossible angles are to be found on this album. The Agonist remind me in this second release of another Canadian band, Unexpect. Of course, Unexpect are totally nuts; the seven-person team under that name has had some solid character- and skill-forming experiences in madness both live and in the studio, which – who knows? – is probably not quite true for The Agonist yet, but both bands, despite their many differences, inhabit similar abstract, psychotic, complex mental spaces of enormous depth and beauty.

Thinking of Unexpect, I cannot evade the thought that one of their (several) singers, who plays a central role in their music, is also a woman. However, I have yet to see Leilindel (if that’s the correct spelling) sold as a promotional image by Unexpect’s label the way Century Media uses Alissa White-Gluz. There are photo-sessions focusing on her, they produce special, edited and “composited” images for their 2009 Girls of Century Media calendar, and so on. Is this intentional? Does she approve of it? Is there a women-have-power concept behind all this? Or is this just another “sex sells” campaign on behalf of the ever-vigilant record companies who miss no opportunity to make a buck or two? The last conclusion seems quite probable to me. Maria Brink, vocalist for In This Moment (and Century Media label-mate), recently did a photo session for Playboy. Lauren Harris (in case you may wonder, daughter of that one Steve Harris we all know) did a similar thing for FHM. There are other examples… this is only recent news. And, interestingly enough, these are women who bring strength and rage to singing in metal/hard rock, they are not of that strange metal persuasion that dictates that female voices must be restricted to sounds only mellow and gentle, sopranos soaring into the clean heights of angel choirs from heaven in contrast to the grunts and shrieks and roars of the males from hell (typical examples: Theatre of Tragedy and Within Temptation). What an old, stereotypical, stinking binarism. But who could tell – the current resurgence of powerful, furious female voices might just be the newest marketing trick. To be honest, I have a great difficulty thinking of Angela Gossow (Arch Enemy) in such an ad campaign, or of Sabina Classen (Holy Moses/Temple Of The Absurd), or of many other people.

And now that I began walking this path, this might be a good place and time to list (since I like lists) a good number of metal/hard-rock bands who use female voices in a powerful or sometimes non-conventional way. There are, besides those that I mentioned above, Madder Mortem from Norway, there were In The Woods… and 3rd and the Mortal from that country too, there’s the international outfit Sinergy, the US all-women Phantom Blue – some of whom sadly died, the women from the collective known as GWAR, the all-female cover-band The Iron Maidens, the angry Kittie, Vixen, Wicked Wisdom (with Jada Pinkett Smith, yes, Will Smith’s wife), Dreams Of Sanity, and many more. Bands like Guano Apes should perhaps also be included, as well as groups that do not have constant/constantly appearing singers like Ayreon, Dark Tranquillity and even Cradle Of Filth. This list, albeit small, brings me some hope that “gender variety”, if I may put it that way at all, is on the rise in heavy music. Of course, gender variety in metal has always been there since Rob Halford came out of his closet during the last century – was it 1998? – but that wasn’t so new since we’ve been listening to him anyway since the day we were born. More variety is needed, more freedom, and more perspectives. Metal has always been about multitudes. A multitude of genders is simply an organic part of it, if not a prerequisite for it.

A Lady in the Water (So That Critics May Live)

As always, spoilers ahead.

Last night, I saw Shyamalan’s Lady in the Water for the first time since its original release. I encountered a multitude of themes that I had probably missed in 2006. Some of those include: Mr. Heep’s struggle to overcome his tremendous feeling of guilt for the death of his family, and his ultimate success; the understanding that Mrs. Choi, coming from an undisclosed East Asian country, is not “inscrutable” and “impenetrable”, as most current films have it about East Asian people, but is instrumental in acquainting the other characters with the real story about Story; the visions of a little boy (Joey Dury) who can guide adult people to the truth, even when reading supernatural messages off cereal boxes; a man (Mr. Leeds) who can keep his bizarre, even slightly offending silence most of the time, but speaks with weight and power when the right moment arrives; a critic who has to die so that critics may live.

Even as I piece this list together, I realise that, in the film, Shyamalan works with types. He presents us with a network of people who all have their stories, who are all symbolising one thing or the other. This, however, might be just one of many possible interpretations. My main concern while watching rested with the unnerving, glued-to, idiotic, absurd, tacked-on, so on, so forth, etc. nature of the supernatural names Mr. Shyamalan comes up with. My question was this: Why did he use names which make the whole story seem so unbelievable, so artificial, so contrived? Was it really his arrogance, his personal conviction that even the bedtime stories he tells his children are film-worth material? Or was it something else entirely? Just think about it – the central words of this story are as follows: Story, narf, scrunt, Kii, the vessel, Guardian, Guild, Madam(e) Narf, the Great Eatlon, Healer, Interpreter, Tartutic. It makes my stomach churn even as I pronounce these words in my mind – they sound as bad as in a generic, copycat elves-dwarves-orcs-magic-swords fantasy book.

Why did he do it then? I discovered I could read Lady in the Water in several distinct ways.

Firs of all, I could accept what critics, especially US ones, generally said about the film. I could think that Shyamalan really is arrogant, self-centred, obsessed with his own fictions and their allegedly superior qualities. I could even start thinking that his earlier successes have all been flukes, that he is now drunk, wallowing in the glory he achieved before, and can no longer produce anything of value. That, however, is not a productive critical stance; it is actually counter-productive. Shyamalan obviously believes very much in what he does; he also manages to persuade a serious number of actors and other artists to invest passion and power in his ideas. That cannot be achieved by paying salaries alone. (At this point, I’d like to just briefly mention the wonderfully fluent special effects in Lady in the Water. Think of the scrunt, if not of anything else.) Talking about money, a few people would risk a 75-million-dollar budget on their own whimsical arrogance – and those who would would fail painfully. This is definitely not the case with Lady in the Water. Finally, presuming that Shyamalan is an arrogant man still says nothing about his work. Rudyard Kipling was casually racist here and there (see “The White Man’s Burden”) – does that mean all of his poetry, as well as his other writings, should be defenestrated?

Another, more productive stance would be to view Lady in the Water as an actual bedtime story, or a fable, with all the ensuing symbolism attached. That would explain many things. I’ll make a non-exhaustive list here. First, the doctor is the Healer, he understands that he cannot save anyone, but should not stop fighting for people’s lives because he is not guilty, cannot be guilty for the death inflicted by a criminal he could not prevent. Second, Joey is the Interpreter, he is the idea that innocence and youth can go a long way because they see without the preconceptions of the adults, because they watch the world with fresh eyes. Third, the guild is the power of the community, the people who stand together, work together, fight together, live together in weakness and strength. Fourth, Reggie turns into the Guardian because he possesses the simple beauty of knowing what’s bad for the living and what’s good for them – certainly, monsters who only want power and have no scruples, no problems with eating the fragile and the defenceless, are bad for the living. Last but not least, Story is named that way because she unlocks the personal stories of all the other characters, she sets their personal histories on new tracks when the old ones have run their courses, she brings a little bit of understanding in a world of confusion.

Still, I think that the film can be seen as a realistic story. (And the phrase “magical realism” does not do it justice because it suggests a very limited, too narrow and too specific explanation.) As with all fiction, the main group of questions here is what if. What if, in a typical run-of-the-mill block of flats as depicted in the film, a water nymph named Story appears? What if she has the power to “activate” the vessel she is supposed to meet? What if, after that happens, she turns out to be a special narf, one that would lead their people to peace, wisdom, prosperity? What if she needs protection? Then all the people around her would need to help, if her mission is to be accomplished and she is to be saved. Shyamalan displays a very deep belief in the goodness of humanity here – he shows that all these people really do come and help when they are needed, even if they are taken out of their own bathroom like Mr. Bubchik. The real Guild helps just like the false one does; the false Interpreter finds the real one; the false Healer understands who the real one is. Shyamalan understood that saying such rather optimistic things is not a good idea in today’s climate. People (non-art people and film critics and art experts and so on) tend to praise bleakness, pessimism, meaninglessness, random filth and illogical destruction. That is why Shyamalan put himself into acting the role of the revolutionary writer. He will have to die for what he has written because he has told the truth, but at least his words will lead to change one day. This is an excellent metafictional statement that most people seem to have simply missed. And the critic, Mr. Farber, proves to be that type of critic who thinks he knows absolutely everything about absolutely everything. He points Mr. Heep in the incorrect direction because he does not understand that in a story, as well as in the real world, both the true Interpreter and the false Interpreter before them play equally important roles. The world, just like fiction, is not a simple place where all stories have been told long ago and where everything works according to well-known patterns, models and schemes. The world changes; fiction changes too. That is why this type of critic has to die, at least in Shyamalan’s film – so that critics may live, and so that art can be carefully interpreted in myriads of ways, not prescribed and pre-programmed by we-know-it-all people full of self-conceit.

Q. W3ary

A Powerful Game or a Game of Power?

Strangely, I did not feel surprised when I read about the recently uncovered insanities in EVE Online. (See the Offworld post for original source.) This is no longer gaming; rather, it borders on megalomaniac obsession with bytes stored in distant servers. A game should be powerful, it should grip your mind, shake it up a bit and make it work, crunch thoughts, produce reactions and opinions and so on. A game should not insert you randomly into yet another power hierarchy – thanks a lot, we are having a fucking hell of a time combating the oppressive power hierarchies in the tangible world, so let’s leave alone the ones created by digits in someone’s CMS for nicely rendered 3D space objects.

On a more positive note, I also spotted this gorgeous video on Offworld. To think that this was done in only 4 Kb of code… now that’s what I call a powerful game: programming something so advanced with such a tiny quota of code space. Creativity knows no bounds!

Using Linux Is Not a Crime

A poor computer science student in Boston has been accused of unknown illegal activities because he had “two different operating systems” installed.

One is the regular B.C. [Boston College] operating system and the other is a black screen with white font which he uses prompt commands on.

Using Linux is not a crime, it is exercising your right of free choice!

(via /.)

And a final subliminal message for all crazy computer maniacs out there: “Bloodsuckers are invincible while invisible!” Muahahahahhaha! Long live the free stalkers in the Zone!

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

As always, spoilers ahead.

Oh yes they do. Basically, it’s what they dream of most of the time, at least in PKD’s world. Like any living beings, androids have many dreams, and their most coveted electric sheep is freedom. The trick, however, is to obtain your freedom while preserving that of others – and that is what they sometimes fail to do. Just as in the film, PKD’s main issue is with the humans who create thinking beings but then deny them the basic rights and liberties of any sentient life. In the novel, Rick Deckard is forced to kill those whom he perceives, on the one hand, as things, non-living, artificial, and, on the other, beautiful. A very tough choice since the escaped androids have also killed – and will continue to kill – in order to attain and keep their freedom. Finally, all things have their lives, as Iran, Rick’s wife, concludes, and we have to take care of them irrespective of their artificial or natural state of existence. Those who cannot understand that deserve no place in any society, even no place among the living.

PKD’s writing in this novel seems quite ambiguous. He is that rarer type of writer that pushes the reader to think for themselves rather than give ready, pre-cooked recipes and solutions for all the problems posed. Although the narrative is quite linear – it generally follows one day in Rick Deckard’s life of a bounty hunter who kills escaped androids for the money, the twists and explosions come from the ingredients of the story. One is rarely sure who is android and who not. At one central point, Rick is led to think that he might be an andy too. PKD’s poetic, bursting narration surprised me not once or twice; one very important moment comes when androids find irrefutable proof that Mercerism, the empathy-based religion in the book, is nothing but a falsification. Nevertheless, the role it plays is genuinely essential: it teaches human beings to care about each other, and about living things in general. Another such thread in PKD’s story is the exaggerated, often comical obsession with animals in the post-nuclear future he describes. We humans always learn to appreciate things when they are about to vanish, when they are on the brink of extinction. It is a sad and deeply ironic statement, but one that all of us have to ponder over more often.

Finally, when all the murderous androids have been retired, there are several things to be discussed. I find that the essential problem here is that of creation. If you create another intelligent being, but deprive it of the power to empathise and of the right to be free, you have actually created a dangerous monster that has nothing to lose. This situation probably stems from the practise of total possession, of absolute ownership – anything you create is always and forever yours; any creation of yours remains unfree unless you decide to liberate it. There can be no sharing; there can be no commonness. Rachael, the Rosen company android, perceives herself as property which, if damaged, has to be repaid. The only person in the novel that seems to be an exception is J.R. Isidore, the so-called chickenhead. He is the only one to give and share without much thought as to whether he helps dangerous andys or not. J.R. seems to be rewarded for this by the surreal incarnation of Mercer who gives him another spider (after the one J.R. finds is mutilated by Pris and Roy). And eventually, he is the only one unscathed by the events. Rick Deckard, on the contrary, has to carry the stone of his mission: destroy the killing andys, although he doesn’t want to do it anymore and, in fact, discovers beauty in them.

The last thing I have to say about this book has to do with the edition I read. The Library of America has republished several PKD novels in several volumes. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? is in their first volume from a couple of years ago. That book – the softness of the thin paper, the hardness and flexibility of the cover, the typesetting and the beautiful font(s) – is simply awesome. I wish more books were produced with that standard in mind, but I guess it’s not cheap, so I don’t expect to see such volumes every day. If you get your hands on such a thing, hold on to it – it will last very long and it will make every re-reading an amazing pleasure.

Nymphetamine Overdose

Today, for the first time in several months, I listened to some Cradle Of Filth on my way to the uni and back. Surprisingly, Cradle fits the sunny weather pretty well. There is something majestic about the way the hot-blooded rage of their music can make your mind soar. I remember exiting a building, putting my sunglasses on – the night-owl that I am – and playing the music, the breeze in my face, the clouds moving gently across the bright blue above, the trees swaying in green. This music is cosmic power, it is igniting your core and flying in fury across the sky, landing with grace, slowly dissolving into long-echoing nirvana.

Of course, talking about fire and flight, all that comes to some people’s minds is 9/11 and global terrorism. Cradle Of Filth tackle that topic in a very intelligent, artistic manner in “Nemesis”, the third track; there, we look inside the mind of a man profoundly hurt by loss who decides that blood and revenge is the only way to go. Such psychological portraits are first thing on the agenda of Danny throughout the album. My favourites include “Gabrielle”, the extended titular “Nymphetamine (Overdose)” – but of course!, “Coffin Fodder” and the sublime “Swansong for a Raven” which is something of a sequel to the equally gripping “Her Ghost in the Fog” from Midian (2000). That’s not to say that the other tracks are inferior – this selection is just very personal.

Every time I experience this album I must discover, time and again, that it embodies all that can be good about extreme metal: the transformation of aggression, of rage and fury, into explosive musical energy; that virtualized identification with fantastic, horrific characters and places and stories; the release of any and all negativities through this palpable valve of mighty warping riffs, annihilating drum-fire from hell, screams of anger, and ungodly space of more and more atmospheric harmony.

Alright, enough crazy chatter. One final comparison – a very far-fetched one, otherwise it wouldn’t be me – I could make with the atmosphere in a game like S.T.A.L.K.E.R. The same horror, beauty and sublimation of the fury, the dark unknown, the will to live, is to be found there – although in a different context. Unearthly.

We Are Linux!

I had great fun with these videos crowdsourced by the Linux Foundation to help promote Linux – which are also perfect as a toungue-in-cheek response to Microsoft’s and Apple’s ad campaigns. My favourites were the French one and “The Origin”, but they’re all really touching. Go Linux go! (via /.)