- Algorithmic Rape Jokes in the Library of Babel – Tim Maly’s ruminations on the intersections between ethics, art, and algorithms in the aftermath of company selling algorithmically generated t-shirts on Amazon that said “Keep Calm and Rape A Lot.”
- Eight writing manuals that are not a waste of time – the ones of these I’ve already read I liked, so I plan to check out the rest.
- Visceral Apps and You – this is largely a love letter to iOS UX design that the author likes, but I think it’s pointing at some ways that the metaphor of physically manipulating software artifacts with one’s hands is experientially different in ways worth thinking about.
- Saturn’s Rings are Raining Water
- New images of the center of the hexagonal storm over Saturn’s north pole.
- OMNI Magazine – The entire run of OMNI is now free on the internet archive. Some day I am going to take some time out and gorge on this.
- How to Build an Artificial Womb – Lots here I’d never considered before.
- Predictions from 1911 of what 2011 would be like.
- Bizarre NSFW pictures of naked women with fish. (Russian site.)
- Bargain (Ten Thousand Dollars) – Nina Paley made a quilt that is also a thought experiment about art collection and speculation.
- 12 Resolutions for Grad Students – Matt Might’s summer advice to grad students, of interest to me in the summer I’ve stopped being one.
Tag: Nina Paley
Download links and BitTorrents of Sita Sings the Blues have gone live, in a variety of resolutions, with more (including DVD-ready files) to come. The download page is being updated with more resources regularly. Get your Sita fix here.
Sita Sings The Blues is a beautiful animated movie exploring various versions of the Ramayana, with about five distinctly different visual styles and a soundtrack of 1920s jazz. It was written, edited, directed, conceived, and everything-else-importanted by Nina Paley. Everything else except distributed, of course. Because film distribution companies handle all that stuff. Right?
Not so in this case. Despite a growing mountain of well deserved accolades, Sita Sings The Blues cannot be distributed nationally due to rights issues related to the Annette Henshaw songs in the soundtrack. So Nina is doing that herself too. Check out the link above: she has negotiated and purchased a limited set of rights, enough to let her release her amazing film into the creative commons. Completely free, full, DVD-ready downloads are forthcoming. Also, due to there apparently being special rules for public broadcast stations, though the film can’t have a traditional distribution, WNET in New York is allowed to broadcast it. They will be doing so on March 7, and, more exciting, have already made the full movie available in streaming format from their website. (If you want a little taste before you watch the whole, approx. 90 minute movie, check out the trailer.)
So, Sita Sings The Blues: not only an utterly delightful work of art, but now also a fascinating experiment in movie distribution. I can’t wait for the downloads to go live. I know I will be giving DVDs away as gifts and having at least one viewing party. And I will definitely be dropping some money in the donation jar, because what Nina Paley is doing is new and exciting in about ten different ways at once, and deserves admiration and support.