December 2010

Lauren Weinstein analyzes some disingenuous publicrelationsspeak about the FCC vote on net neutrality in a run-of-the-mill press release that he found from a maker of "packet inspection" apparatus for internet service providers.

Supposedly offering a straightforward, unbiased report on the vote allowing "tiered services," the release implies that broadband providers can't currently offer limited internet plans to low income customers (they can) and also that high-volume users "negatively impact other users" (they don't). The press release compares cable companies to power or water utilities, implying cable should be charged at a higher rate during times of peak use, even though fuel and drinkable water are limited commodities (unlike data), and someone using twice the data as another internet user isn't using twice the electricity, in any "meaningfully measurable" sense. Moreover, governments regulate power and water, while cable companies have been lobbying hard to limit regulation.

Also, power and water companies don't have the inherent conflict of interest of being a common carrier (like phone lines) while at the same time trying to steer you to higher-priced crappy content they are providing.

In a related topic, some back and forth discussion about "netflix neutrality."

Was having some email back and forth with John Michael Boling about the recent spate of "animated GIFs are back" articles (Slate, Jezebel, Dazed & Confused, Vice/Motherboard that I know of). He said

Its interesting to see animated GIFs get coverage in more mainstream places, but those places always focus on the wrong things when they cover stuff like that. They always misread the sincerity as irony.

oh well a few of us out there know the truth -- the overwhelming difference a 10ms timing shift in a single frame can have to the feel of an animation, the elegance in an appropriately used dither, the subtle power that exists in the size limitations of the gif format, the chaotic perfection that can be squeezed out of a rigid bitmap grid, the individual patina that each browser gives to the gif's motion and resolution, etc, etc, etc, etc

Sally McKay's essay The Affect of Animated GIFs mentions the slow frame rate and how it makes you more aware of the mechanics of animation. That is interesting and why I prefer GIFs to straight video. Was happy to be included in that article but am not sure a couple of her terms apply to the GIFs I most like. "Affect" to me connotes a kind of sub-emotion, almost like a reflex, or a numbness in the place of emotion. Certain GIFs take "peak" moments from movies and loop them (e.g., the once-transgressive exploding head in Scanners, or Charles Foster Kane clapping angrily for his wife's terrible opera singing): this reduces a shot that has great significance in the film to what I would call "mere affect." McKay also uses the term "anaesthetic," again, implying numbness. I prefer Peter Halley's phrase "low-budget mysticism," which he used to describe his suprematist-style paintings made with day-Glo paint and Roll-a-Tex texturizer (of motel ceiling fame). The best GIFs put you in a trance for as long as you want to be in it, hooking you up with the great beyond of sublime experience while keeping you in a pleasantly wised-up state as to how you are getting there.

YouTube comedy gold via Joe McKay: Minecraft FIREE WTFFFFFFF!!!!!

This is one of those "net artists, just give up" YouTubes, in that it is more dramatic, visually enthralling, and its own weird way, thought provoking than your typical artist fodder. Like, could something like this be engineered as a deadpan comedy act, a la Buster Keaton walking unawares through a collapsing building, or the venerable "kitchen demo gone wrong" or do we rely on our belief in its authenticity as a "digital accident" to find it funny? Are such accidents really possible on this dramatic scale and is that why gaming remains popular? (Obviously demos trump games around here.) It's good either way, of course. I like how the camera plays a role, a la the scene in The Birds where more crows appear on the jungle gym every time the viewer "cuts away."