By Mark Goetz. (Thanks, PeaceLove)

Anglo-Saxon Aloud: Daily readings (and podcasts) from the Complete Corpus of Anglo Saxon Poetry, presented by Prof. Michael Drout, Wheaton College. For those that like to read along, the Corpus presented in text (no translation, though).

"Starting with the precedents set by Charles Ives and John Cage, VARIATIONS presents the principal milestones of Sampling Music, looking at examples from 20th century composition, popular art and the mass media, and the way all of these currents converge today." Curated by Jon Leidecker, who records and performs as Wobbly. "Poet Kenneth Goldsmith presents selections from UbuWeb, the learned and varietous online repository concerning concrete & sound poetry, experimental film, outsider art and all things avant-garde" in Avant-Garde All the Time. Goldsmith's the founding editor of UbuWeb and sometime DJ on WFMU as Kenny G. (Previously: CodPaste - a 14-part podcast about the history and practice of sound collage and mashups. )

Breakout, on acid

The Visual Understanding Environment (VUE) is a free, open source program developed at Tufts University. It lets you create concept (mind) maps and analyze them in various ways. One very useful thing it can do is generate concept maps from .CSV files. Here's an introductory screencast (length: 6 min 9 sec). You can watch all related videos here. The program runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux.

From the surreal comic duo Tim and Eric (seen previously) comes a fifteen minute short about parenthood: Father and Son.

A happy sign I spotted in the alley.

During eight years heading the Interior Department, from 1961 to 1969, for the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, he crusaded for the Clean Air Act, the Wilderness Act , the Land and Water Conservation Fund Act and the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act . During his tenure, the US added 2.4 million acres to our national parks. And it was to him that Nikita Kruschev famously hinted at missiles in Cuba, precipitating the Cuban Missile Crisis . Stewart Udall died today at age 90.

Andy Grauland scours Google Maps for stunning natural imagery. The 19-year old Dane has close to two dozen extracts on his site. Take a look at places where no street view exists, and feel free to zoom/pan. (via, see also (previously))

Getting ugly at the tea party protests today.

Idaho recently passed H.B. 633 (.pdf) that will allow Idaho citizens to pay their state taxes with an official state silver medallion. The news comes just a month after a South Carolina legislator introduced a bill seeking to ban Federal currency altogether, and replace the upstart greenback with gold or silver coins. Meanwhile, Georgia has introduced the "Sound Money in Banking Act" which would require any bank serving as a depository for the state to offer and accept gold and silver coins for deposit. Is gold making a comeback as currency?

From March 18, 2010 on The Daily Show. Stewart repeatedly goes into histrionics a la Beck and debunks his techniques of illogic.

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BrainPOP, makers of short educational animations, created this short film based on the life of Ada Lovelace, inventor of computer programming, daughter of Lord Byron, partner-in-crime of Charles Babbage, and horse-fancier.

BrainPOP | Ada Lovelace (Thanks, Karina!) Previously:

• Ada Lovelace Day needs your support!
• Ada Lovelace Day T-shirts!
• Ada Lovelace biopic needs letters of support
• Comic about Ada Lovelace and Charles Babbage
• Linda Stone profiled for Ada Lovelace Day
• Lisa Randall on the origin of the universe -- Happy Ada Lovelace ...

Skimbal created this 3D-printable Gothic Cathedral playset -- you can print and add as many segments as you'd like and assemble a church to your specification. As Skimbal notes, "Have you ever wanted a Gothic Cathedral of your very own? Are you intimidated by the centuries long construction schedule, and the punishing job requirements of being a European Bishop during the Dark Ages? Then We Have a Thing For YOU! The Gothic Cathedral Play Set!"

Gothic Cathedral Play Set by Skimbal (via Make) Previously:

• MakerBot: 3D Printers for the mildly solderphobic
• Shapeways interviews Makerbot: 3D printing ahoy!
• Can Bre Pettis Replicate Himself?
• Parts Nebula: a parts-tracking inventory system for makers - Boing ...
• Successful marriage proposal via 3D-printed ring

I've spent the last day in a funk at the news that my friend, Canadian sf writer Peter Watts was convicted of obstruction for getting out of his car at a US Border crossing and asking what was going on, then not complying fast enough when he was told to get back in the car. He faces up to two years in jail.

David Nickle, a mutual friend who worked with Peter on his defense, has a very good post on the subject, including a quote from one of the jurors: The job of the jury was to decide whether Mr. Watts "obstructed/resisted" the custom officials. Assault was not one of the charges. What it boiled down to was Mr. Watts did not follow the instructions of the customs agents. Period. He was not violent, he was not intimidating, he was not stopping them from searching his car. He did, however, refuse to follow the commands by his non compliance. He's not a bad man by any stretch of the imagination. The customs agents escalted the situation with sarcasm and miscommunication. Unfortunately, we were not asked to convict those agents with a crime, although, in my opinion, they did commit offenses against Mr. Watts. Two wrongs don't make a right, so we had to follow the instructions as set forth to us by the judge. That's apparently the statute: if you don't comply fast enough with a customs officer, he can beat you, gas you, jail you and then imprison you for two years. This isn't about safety, it isn't about security, it isn't about the rule of law.

It's about obedience.

Authoritarianism is a disease of the mind. It criminalizes the act of asking "why?" It is the obedience-sickness that turns good people into perpetrators and victims of atrocities great and small.

I don't know if Peter will appeal. I hope he does. I hope he gets a jury who nullify the statute. I hope he brings a civil action against the officials who clearly played fast and loose with the truth (From David: "Under cross-examination by Mullkoff, the border guards had conceded that Peter hadn't assaulted anyone; hadn't threatened to assault anyone; and that his aggressive stance was nothing any reasonable person would consider aggressive. The allegations that he had somehow choked border guard Andrew Beaudry while Beaudry was hitting him, were demolished.").

I don't know if he will. He may decide to take his chances for a suspended sentence and forswear ever visiting America again, opting to be a writer instead of a professional litigant. I'd understand. But tonight, I'm understanding that dark place that so many of Peter's books seem to come from. I think of myself, fundamentally, as a optimist and a believer that justice can and will prevail. But in the face of that jury's decision, in face of the dishonesty of the officials, in the face of the absurdity of the statute, I feel like justice is a joke and hoping for it is a waste of time.

I'm sorry that the system failed you, Peter.

Guilty Previously:

• Peter Watts found guilty
• Dr Peter Watts, Canadian science fiction writer, beaten and ...
• Peter Watts's wonderful dystopias under a CC license

[pdf] Clergymen in the closet -- not because they are gay; because they don't believe in God. Here's a followup.

Not necessarily "naïve"; more like "vernacular." Jules Vernacular posts dozens of photos of vernacular or unschooled signage on French buildings (in the site's punning slogan, lettres œuvrières et incongruités typographiques). As ever, it's amazing that this typography, most of it hand-drawn, hasn't been wiped out by progress and regularized into Arial (or the Arial of 2010, Papyrus).
Vernacular signage happens all over the world. For a South African treatment, see also the podcast (regular Web page) from Garth Walker's presentation to the AIGA in 2007, "If I Live in Africa, Why Would I Want to Look Like I Live in New York?"

Vince Clarke welcomes Motherboard.tv to his electronic cabin in the woods.
Clarke, formally of Depeche Mode and Yazoo, and currently still working with his Erasure partner, Andy Bell, relocated first to NYC, and then wandered into the Maine wilderness. His workshop is something to behold.

John Lennon, Eric Clapton, Keith Richards, Mitch Mitchel. The meeting of 4 of the biggest music stars in the 60's on the Rolling Stone's Rock and Roll Circus.

TV Medley "Duet"