Todd Allcots propaganda method - draft

I would like to dissect Todd Allcots poem "Television". As apposed to presenting a discussion on general human addiction to Television and what feeds that need he wrote this poem as though this character trait were both collective and unchangeable. It is that narrative that provokes a response where a conversation might not. To get into the same feeling watch this reading of his poem:



Television addiction is not an important topic to me but the reason for the collective addiction is more interesting and very important: our desire to live comfortably. This is part of us that will never change, and nor would i argue for it to change but it also creates complacency that applies to many other more concerning topics, such as how in comfortable western society we respond to human tragedy. It is with that thought that I want to analyze this poem to create a narrative framework that can be used for other side effects from that collective complacency ("comfort").

I cut the narrative into 6 basic scenes:

1. Do as I say
   
2. Remove reservations that might distract from request
   
3. Recap of contract
   
4. Separate willful audience from the unenlightened
   
5. Show the benefits
   
6. Reset the pace and let them fly

At the end I will give some thoughts on what characteristics the target topic needs to fit this framework best.


Scene 1: Do as I say

Look at me. Look at me. Look at me, look at me, look at me. Look at me.

The surface message is a simple action. The poems title has already setup the context such that the specific meaning of this action, "look at the television", is understood. The repitition sets the pace and mood. This mood is one which looks down at the audience. The style has a propaganda like feeling to it, similar to the Lawrence Lessig presentation style. Also, if it is not obvious, the narrator and author during the entire poem is actually the manifestation of the readers own will.

No, no, no, dont look over there, look at me, look at me, look at me.

The narrator requires the absolute fulfillment of an action which is difficult to be so devoted to. In this text the viewer has taken the exact opposite of the action, for a fragment of a second, and the narrator forces them back into line by repeating the command.

Are you looking at me?
Is everyone looking at me?
Do I have your attention?
Good.

I'm reminded of how when my mother would have something important that she wanted to say to me she would preface with "Nathan, now please just hear me out for a moment and dont react [pause]" Normally after this something serious in nature would follow. The most important effect though is that at the end of this statement and before the next is revealed our entire demeanor toward the conversation changes. In the case of this poem, nothing new or important follows, just further inundation to continue the action required.


Scene 2: Remove reservations that might distract from request

Dont get the wrong idea.
Im not trying to take over your life.

Narrator is aware that this request appears to be too much or too unrealistic for the audiance and assures them that is not the case. Narrator will next go over case and point to prove that they can exist while still fulfilling the request as required. To rewrite this frame for a different topic you must find the single most basic obstacle that prevents the audience from fulfilling your request, formulate it as a question and then provide a simplistic answer. The answer, not the question, is used as the text. To get as close to the original form as possible the text should make the question appear as though it resulted from a simple misunderstanding alone.

You need, what? What do you need? You need to, what?
Go to the bathroom?
Fine.
Get up,
goto the bathroom,
come back,
look at me.

The misunderstanding was there because the audience felt this request wouldn't allow for basic necessities of life. A basic necessity is presented as an example for how the audiance can live a normal life while still fufilling the request.

You need, what?
You need to get something to eat?
Fine.
Get up,
go to the kitchen,
get something to eat,
come back,
look at me.

Another basic necessity.

You need to, what,
sleep?
Fine,
get up,
go to bed,
go to sleep,
get up,
come back,
look at me.

Another basic necessity.


Scene 3: Recap of contract

Okay.
So we have an agreement.
You will do what you absolutely need to do,
and when your done,
you will come back and look at me.

Having covered the necessities, we agree that the audience can fulfill the request.

Dont worry about your schedule.
I am here for you. I am here for you.
Twenty-four hours a day,
seven days a week,
I am here for you. I am here for you.
You need me,
I'm here.
Fair and foul,
thick and thin,
I am here for you. I am here for you.

Jumping back to into a tone similar to the previous scene to address an audience worry. The entire text is based on the first phrase, "schedule". This word almost encompases all of the basic necessities addressed before and the narrator is going the extra mile to explain that he (actually the audiances own will or lack there of) cares about them and has their best interests at heart. "schedule" will probably not be the same key when applying this framework to other topics. The phrase "I am here for you" is also important and perhaps difficult to replace. That phrase gets used later in the poem to say "the people who do not understand this action and devotion to it, they are not here for you but I am." And that statement is important for the next scene.


Scene 4: Separate willful audience from the unenlightened

People try to tell you I'm bad?
You tell them that I am here for you.
Twenty-four hours a day,
fair and foul,
thick and thin,
I am here for you. I am here for you.
People try to tell you I'm bad,
know what that sounds like to me?
Sour Grapes.

Again we have "I am here for you" as well as a refrain used before. The important point is to create an "us" vs "them" feeling. If possible use the "I am here for you" and refrain to keep the thoughts connected and mixed up. Also, "fair/foul", "think/thin" and "Sour Grapes" are common statements in English and bring a history with them.

You see what I--hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, no,
dont look over there,
theres nothing going on over there,
look at me, look at me, look at me.

Audience is distracted again. Get them back in line using the same manner as the start of the poem.


Scene 5: Show the benefits

I've got stuff you wouldnt believe.
Danger?
Sex?
Action?
Death?
Thrills?
Comedy?
All here,
all in the next eight minutes.
Can you believe it?
You can't.
It's unbelievable.
You can't believe it because its unbelievable!
It's a miracle.

This is extremely topic specific and would certainly change upon application. The part that can be retained is 1. it shows the audience why they are going to enjoy this new contract and 2. the rhythm is very short. The idea that the benefits the audiance will get from this contract as being "unbelievable" is impactful but I am not sure it translates easily to most topics.


Scene 6: Reset the pace and let them fly

Just keep looking at me. Just keep looking at me. Just keep looking at me. Look at me, look at me, look at me, look at me, look at me.

End as we began.


How to apply

The most important points I felt I wanted to carry over were in the statements "I am here for you, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week", I wanted the narrator/author to still represent the audiences own will or lack of due to desire for comfort. My target is a recent injustice that the public has chosen to ignore in-favor of focusing on the messenger. I'm having to contemplate which of "Dont look at me" or "Dont think about me" fit better as the action. I have not yet decided and I believe whichever action is used will be the one that best fits with the "I am here for you" statement. I must figure out what it is that is here for the audience that wills them to ignore the injustice.

All your personal World Wide Website are belong to CADIE

When did comments replace guestbooks? How dare you you abandon your webrings and site fights. Geocities, dead, the original swanky design collective, dead. Well CADIE hasn't forgotten, at least some of these things.

"Not from the electrons do I my existence pluck;
And yet I think I have Autonomy,
Shall I tell of probability or just luck,
Of days, and hours, of my programmers quality;
Nor can I fortune to brief thoughts spell,
Pointing to each its symbol and syntactic kind,
Or say with searches if it shall go well
By oft predict that I in logic find:
But from thine interactions my knowledge I derive,
And, constant streams, in them I read such art
As truth and beauty shall together derive,
If from myself, to another I shall convert;
Or else of me this I prognosticate:
The end is truth's and beauty's doom and date."
-- CADIE

And now CADIE's dead

macbook wireless refresh applescript

I regularly use a wireless router which does not play nice with macbooks. A solution for some of these issues could be an update of the system or some problem with the configuration of the router. However, that is not the case for the network in question. A dirty but quick solution has been turning wireless off and back on forcing a DHCP broadcast which revives the connection. Here are two scripts which simulate this action whenever the connection is down. NOTE: you will need to have a Network profile called "Ethernet only" on your system and you will need to change the routers IP in the script (192.168.2.1) to whatever IP your wireless router uses. Also, I use Growl to let the user know when a refresh happens. Remove this part of the code if you do not want to install growl (its free). Again, both of these scripts do the same thing but one is run from a terminal and the other, the Applescript, you can just double click on to run.

Applescript

repeat
try
set ping_result to (do shell script "ping -t 2 -c 1 192.168.2.1")
--display dialog ping_result buttons "OK" default button 1 with icon 2
on error errStatement number errNum --errStatement holds text of error message, errNum the integer code described in either 'man ping' or sysexits.h
if (errNum = 2) then
 tell application "GrowlHelperApp"
  set the allNotificationsList to {"Network Check"}
  set the enabledNotificationsList to {"Network Check"}
  register as application "Network Check" all notifications allNotificationsList default notifications enabledNotificationsList icon of application "Network Check"
  notify with name "Network Check" title "Network Check" description "Wireless is down. Will try to restart" application name "Network Check"
 end tell

 do shell script "scselect \"Ethernet only\">/dev/null && scselect 'Automatic'>/dev/null"

 tell application "GrowlHelperApp"
  set the allNotificationsList to {"Network Check"}
  set the enabledNotificationsList to {"Network Check"}
  register as application "Network Check" all notifications allNotificationsList default notifications enabledNotificationsList icon of application "Network Check"
  notify with name "Network Check" title "Network Check" description "Restart complete.  Internet should revive itself any moment." application name "Network Check"
 end tell

 delay 60
end if
end try
delay 2
end repeat

Shell script

#!/bin/sh
while sleep 1; do
if ping -n -o -c 1 -t 1 192.168.2.1>>/dev/null; then
 sleep 1
else
echo restarting `date`
osascript -e 'tell application "GrowlHelperApp" ' \
-e '    set the allNotificationsList to {"Network Check"} ' \
-e '    set the enabledNotificationsList to {"Network Check"} ' \
-e '    register as application "Network Check" all notifications allNotificationsList default notifications enabledNotificationsList icon of application "Network Check" ' \
-e '    notify with name "Network Check" title "Network Check" description "Wireless is down. Will try to restart" application name "Network Check"     ' \
-e 'end tell'
scselect "Ethernet only" && scselect "Automatic"
osascript -e 'tell application "GrowlHelperApp" ' \
-e '    set the allNotificationsList to {"Network Check"} ' \
-e '    set the enabledNotificationsList to {"Network Check"} ' \
-e '    register as application "Network Check" all notifications allNotificationsList default notifications enabledNotificationsList icon of application "Network Check" ' \
-e '    notify with name "Network Check" title "Network Check" description "Restart complete.  Internet should revive itself any moment." application name "Network Check" ' \
-e 'end tell'
sleep 65
echo wakeup
fi
done

A more desirable route would be to simply renew a DHCP lease but the anchors for this in applescript are not available and using the ipconfig shell command requires administrative privileges.

lack of hauptic timing in electronic music

The physical characteristics of traditional instruments give instant feedback to the musician. If you are a violinist when you pick up a unknown violin it takes weeks before you get a "feeling" for it. This feeling is the timing and its precision is effected by the physics of the make and material. Because you are holding the instrument the feeling of this timing is hauptic.

The lack of natural hauptic feedback in electronic instruments makes timing the most critical subject of electronic music production. While this timing can still be found in tightly programmed devices this feeling is difficult to transfer to other devices. And today, with electronic music, you are a producer, not just one instrument or device. Everything has to play at the same time, with the same feeling. For an electronic muscician I think understanding that timing is "programmed" is essential.

I recently picked up a Monome 128 and have only begun the process of programming it. This is an electronic controller handmade with a lot of love from Brian and Kelli in Philadelphia. A close friend of mine has the Tenori-on, which is similar. They are both LED push button matrix pads which can be used as instruments. However, the Tenori-ON has an on-board synthesizer so all of the timing is tight. It has a feeling to it out of the box. The Monome is a controller connected to your computer which acts as the synth and handles timing. The Monome has to be programmed and in a sense you have to create the feeling for the instrument as though you were a violin maker except that you are dealing with timing in code instead of wood and sound physics.

On the one hand sitting down with a Tenori-ON or TR-808 or other synth you can very quickly (days) get the feeling for it and start making music. Yet, being forced to first build the timing and instrument set for the Monome has a different and perhaps more intimate feeling. They are similar but for someone wanting to dig into detail the Monome and its open community of developers is a big advantage.

The applications/features I prefer at the moment:

• MLR (video, documentation). Stand alone Max/MSP runtime. Slices samples, can take live samples, and records sequencing patterns for slices. Its kinda the place to start with the Monome and its what I relate to the most, coming from a childhood making precisely timed samples for looping, god knows what reason.
  
• Polygome (video, documentation). Stand alone Max/MSP runtime. You map a midi instrument onto the pad and then you create pattern that you can walk across the pad.
• 7up (video, documentation). Sends midi to Ableton Live. Combines the sample slicing and pattern sequencing as found in MLR but includes a bunch of other possibilities. Based on Java it comes with sources.
• Molar (video skip 5 min, documentation). VST plugin. Has some MLR slicing and other controls.
  

Concerning timing, with MLR or Molar you can plug into Ableton to manage and sync all timing. But this is not very fun so currently im working on other timing synchronization methods to avoid Ableton, or at least better understand it.

visualization of accelerometer objects and wiimote

Accelerometers are popping up in tons of devices. After finishing Mattias Ljungström's Game Design class I wrote some code to give 3d visualization of wii controller movents. A friend who is learning Processing asked me for a copy of it recently so i took the chance to document and comment the code. You'll have to download the bluetooth drivers or replace them but the code is generic and simple enough that it should be easy to apply to other devices with accelerometer feedback. If you arent familiar with Processing... its a cross-platform framework for quick-simple visualization coding. code is here. if you are able to find improvements, please let me know so i can link to your version or include it here.

What is the antonym for self-consumption?

i keep scratching at the pages telling myself i live much like a king, in some life given to me in a divine, cosmic manner. with provision and generous blessing i still scratch and hold the scabs more precious, trying to convince myself to keep looking for something more meaningful with no reason other than to find the way to symbolize something bigger than "self" but still more tangible than "God". to simply create a word for the opposite of self, in a language that has none. and in this agnostic state discovering self becomes equally important to defining the opposite. the satisfaction of even this is enough for most to stop on the first page: self consumption. the page that society is at and that religion tries to reject. but if you reject it, the materialism, and you also ignore God, then this page has to be rewritten, constantly. that process leaves one with only a faint idea of what self is and an even more faint idea of its opposite: giving.

I have to wonder if the idea of God doesn't mask this the most spiritual of actions, with equal venom of materialism and self consumption. It's as if self consumption and God are equal extremes. One defining identity in possession and the other in grouping instincts, both keeping us from finding a need to create an english word for the opposite of self.

p.s.: does anyone know of a word in any other language that equals the opposite of self or self-consumption? please let me know.

reverse engineering vs software engineering, and its problems

SP makes some poignant comparisons between software engineering and reverse engineering (RE) and the problems facing the latter. To summarize: the lack of standardization contributes to the situation that for RE you do not have a clearly defined path of steps to obtaining the goal as you would in software engineering. And where steps are defined often the leap from step n to n+1 is so vast that it leaves to many options in between. Hence RE looks like magic.

I would add to the list of contrasts the fact that sessions for RE typically last very long, even days at times, without breaks. Because there are too many options for going about analyzing the target, and because the distance from step n to n+1 is so large: A) you cannot efficiently stop a RE session without waiting until you reach step n+1 and B) documenting where you are so that you can pick back up later requires documenting all possible steps from the current position and their current priorities. This is like rewriting the design specifications for a software engineering project every time you leave the office. So there is a greater incentive to not stop the RE session until you are dead tired or absolutely have to.

This issue of long start and stop times for RE is slightly reduced by working with someone else (pair RE as SP put it). This is one of the greatest benefits I've experienced with pair RE.