Either we do know all the varieties of beings which people our planet, or we do not. If we do not know them all -— if Nature has still secrets in the deeps for us, nothing is more conformable to reason than to admit the existence of fishes, or cetaceans of other kinds, or even of new species … which an accident of some sort has brought at long intervals to the upper level of the ocean.
Kevin Kelly outlines the history of the All-Species Project and the Encyclopedia of Life. Like Kevin, I see the “all-ist” nature of the project as crucial; the semantic shift from “catalog as many species as possible” to “catalog all life on earth” tips the endeavor from the simply monumental into the sublime.
The above photo has been making waves in the wildlife science and conservation communities, as it is the first confirmed sighting of a wolverine in the Sierra Nevada since 1922. Oregon State grad researcher Katie Moriarty set up the motion-sensor camera to track martens, another elusive and weasel-like species, but wound up capturing the first-ever photo of a wild wolverine in California.
Drawing of Wolverine by C.G. Pritchard (Hall and Keson, 1959)
No documented sightings since 1922? What kind of gentle, solitude-loving creature is this, you ask? Noted naturalist and pioneer of the Boy Scout movement Ernest Thompson Seton, writing from the mid-1920s, is here to set you straight with a sensationalistic if not outright Lovecraftian description:
Picture a weasel — and most of us can do that, for we have met that little demon of destruction, that small atom of insensate courage, that symbol of slaughter, sleeplessness, and tireless, incredible activity — picture that scrap of demoniac fury, multiply that mite some fifty times, and you have the likeness of a Wolverine.
Congrats to DARPA for fifty years of disruptive technology development. The DARPA scientists I have met and worked with have to a person been fascinating individuals working on very tough problems. I don’t always support the military end goal that DARPA projects seek to achieve, but of all US military endeavors, I find the spillover into public benefit to be particularly high from DARPA. The agency is a unique organization within the military, and I hope it retains its sense of purpose and vision for the next fifty years.
When T.I.’s “What You Know” came out in 2006, the track dominated the charts. It was pretty much inescapable that entire summer - hailed as an instant classic for its swaggering Southern lyrical style and its infectious, anthemic synth melody. The song was a classic in more ways than one, however. Can you believe that hook has been powering hits since 1968?
The producers of “What You Know,” DJ Toomp and Wonder, definitely did some crate digging to find that melody. The hook first appeared in The Impressions’ “Gone Away,” written by Curtis Mayfield, Donny Hathaway, and LeRoy Hutson, and released on the album This is My Country.
My guess is that we have Donny Hathaway to thank for it, because In 1970, Hathaway used the same hook in his cover of Ray Charles’ “I Believe To My Soul,” recorded for his debut album Everything is Everything. And here it gets the deep horn sound and rhythm that we hear echoed in “What You Know.”
But that wasn’t the end of the story. Donny Hathaway had befriended Roberta Flack while they were both students at Howard, which led to a series of legendary collaborations between the two before Hathaway’s tragic death in 1979. Early in their partnership, during the same period in which Hathaway recorded Everything is Everything, he also arranged Roberta Flack’s album Chapter Two. On that album, Flack covered the Impressions’ “Gone Away,” and when the song’s pace picks up about halfway through we hear the hook again.
Thirty-six years later, producers DJ Toomp and Wonder are shuffling through the stacks, listening to some old Roberta Flack…and a classic hook is reborn for a new era.
- - -
This video contains short audio clips of “Gone Away” by Impressions, the Roberta Flack cover, and T.I.’s “What You Know.” However, no Donny Hathaway mention!
In struggles of sovereignty, cartography is a weapon. I first saw the truth in this statement in the work of Bernard Nietschmann, a professor of mine at Berkeley who partnered with indigenous groups in Nicaragua, Mexico, and Australia to map their traditional territories and fishing areas. These maps became critical tools in the groups’ struggles with local governments for indigenous control over resource rights.
I was recently reminded of Nietschmann’s work when a friend here in Mumbai reported that her copy of the most recent Economist was marked with a blue stamp painstakingly applied on a page containing a map of India. The stamp read: “The external boundries [sic] of India as depicted are neither correct nor authentic.” Much confusion ensued, but an explanation was soon found.
So even as the Information and Broadcasting Ministry plans to ease regulations on advertising in foreign print media, an archaic practice is delaying their distribution.Every edition which carries a map of India — particularly one depicting the Indo-Pak border — is delayed by at least two days. The reason: a special cell of the Customs department stamps each map in every single copy imported with the message: ‘The external boundaries of India as depicted are neither accurate nor authentic.’
…
In New Delhi, the process starts at the Indira Gandhi International terminal’s cargo shed. The Joint Commissioner, Cargo, heads a 40-member team with an Inspector and Superintendent who have been deputed the job of checking all printed material for anything that may be “inflammatory” or any representation of India in maps which is considered “incorrect”.
In case of any “offensive” representation, the clearing agent of the magazine’s publishing house in India is called to the Customs office. The consignment is opened, and each map in every single copy is then stamped.
The Indian Express article quotes the Economist as writing in a 2007 editorial:
Some readers in India seem to suspect us of malice: perhaps we publish such maps purely to irk the authorities and add to the overtime earnings of the hard-pressed stampers. The truth is more benign: in using “the line of control” that divides Kashmir in the absence of an agreed international frontier we are merely noting the status quo, not endorsing it.
Yet noting the cartographic status quo does grant it legitimacy in a way that obviously threatens the Indian government. In this particular struggle for sovereignty, cartography is a weapon that can be used by any group to articulate and advance their agenda. Indian maps show Kashmir as all Indian territory, Pakistani maps no doubt show the reverse. And despite the Economist’s stated benign intentions, do not mistake this seemingly innocuous statement (from the same article) as anything but a bold agenda of its own:
We use maps not to portray the world as it ought to be, or even as we would like it to be, but as it is.
The cover of the Economist this week asks “What’s Holding India Back?” This account of the challenges facing governmental reform is one of the standout pieces, a character study of one of India’s elite public servants that conveys the Herculean nature of the task of running this country.
A four-year veteran of the elite Indian Administrative Service (IAS), Mr Samphel is the district magistrate of Jalaun, in Uttar Pradesh (UP) province. More often called the collector, or district officer, the district magistrate is the senior official of India’s key administrative unit, the district. In Jalaun, an expanse of arid plain between the Ganges and Yamuna rivers, Mr Samphel is in charge of 564 villages and 1.4m people.
…
[In his office], beneath a portrait of a beaming Mohandas Gandhi, Mr Samphel receives a stream of poor people. A turbaned flunkey regulates the flow, letting in a dozen at a time. Many are old and ragged, or blind. Paraplegics slither to the collector’s feet on broken limbs. Most bring a written plea, for the resumption of a widow’s pension that has mysteriously dried up; for money for an operation; for a tube-well or a blanket. Many bear complaints against corrupt officials. One supplicant wants permission to erect a statue of a dead politician: a former champion of the Hindu outcastes who comprise nearly half of Jalaun’s population.
…
Mr Samphel reckons he spends 60% of his time dealing with individual supplicants—also outside the collectorate. … Mr Samphel works 16 hours a day, seven days a week, and reckons he has had two days off since 2003. But this is hardly an efficient way to minister to a needy population almost half the size of New Zealand’s.
New project! This is a community resource for all expats in Bombay — a wiki to gather the best information and recommendations from the members of the Bombay Expats Yahoo Group.
You can always count on Kevin Kelly to sense the emerging dynamics of a system and crystallize his insight into a simple and compelling idea that he freely shares with everyone. Then this idea spreads into collective understanding such that it is hard to imagine how one actually viewed the issue beforehand. It’s almost uncanny how consistent this is.
Kevin is at it again with a recent blog post articulating a strategy for creatives to make money on the web through building and maintaining a moderately-sized patronage system, a model he calls 1000 True Fans.
…The long tail is a decidedly mixed blessing for creators. Individual artists, producers, inventors and makers are overlooked in the equation. The long tail does not raise the sales of creators much, but it does add massive competition and endless downward pressure on prices…Other than aim for a blockbuster hit, what can an artist do to escape the long tail?
…
Young artists starting out in this digitally mediated world have another path other than stardom, a path made possible by the very technology that creates the long tail. Instead of trying to reach the narrow and unlikely peaks of platinum hits, bestseller blockbusters, and celebrity status, they can aim for direct connection with 1,000 True Fans.
Definitely read the whole post for the full effect. I think Kevin’s observations and insights hold true not just for individual artists, but for a new generation of niche web services that are not necessarily designed to go viral and attract millions of users, but will instead leverage the 1000 true fans strategy to make a decent living for their creators. We are seeing this already with an explosion of small social networking sites, but I have a feeling there are many more of these human-scale services to come.
