[NetBehaviour] Ecosia

Fri Dec 6 01:24:45 CET 2019

Check out Bruno Latour, Some Experiments in Art and Politics, in e-flux
Journal, The Internet Does Not Exist, re: Tomas Saraceno's work -
this may be what you want, also book on Bubbles etc. by Peter Solterdijk -
I also have a book on positive feedback that's useful (math/sci.) etc.
There's a lot out there.

- Alan -

On Thu, Dec 5, 2019 at 6:09 PM Max Herman via NetBehaviour <
netbehaviour at lists.netbehaviour.org> wrote:

>
> Hi Edward, and thanks for the direct reply!
>
> I think I need to check my trusty Norton for more Stevens and shop the
> local used book shop.  I always liked him but he had fallen off my
> proverbial radar.
>
> Feedback of the quizzical sort from several folks regarding my use of the
> word "network" lately is giving me impetus to look for different phrasing,
> perhaps like fabric of connections, connectivity, and the like.
> Interwoven, intermeshed, implicated perhaps?
>
> I see a woven fabric in "a man and a woman and a bird are one," for
> example, and even more so in how "it marked the edge of one of many
> circles" relates to your "very large circle" in Very Large Works.  I've
> also taken the idea of "supreme fiction" since college to indicate
> something more like a robust fabric than a titanic or victorious individual
> work -- a web of creative and restorative processes rather than a "perfect"
> image or object.
>
> But, I see what I look for I suppose, and this kind of tracery is the bulk
> of what I look for lately.
>
> All best,
>
> Max
>
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* NetBehaviour <netbehaviour-bounces at lists.netbehaviour.org> on
> behalf of Edward Picot via NetBehaviour <
> netbehaviour at lists.netbehaviour.org>
> *Sent:* Thursday, December 5, 2019 4:45 PM
> *To:* Max Herman via NetBehaviour <netbehaviour at lists.netbehaviour.org>
> *Cc:* Edward Picot <julian.lesaux at gmail.com>
> *Subject:* Re: [NetBehaviour] Ecosia
>
> Max,
>
> I thought the same thing about Haddam, until, like you, I discovered it
> was a place in Connecticut.
>
> 'The Emperor of Ice Cream' is one of Michael Szpakowski's favourite poems
> - mine too, for that matter.
>
> Do I think 'Thirteen Ways of Looking at a Blackbird' is about networks?
> Not really, if I'm honest. You can find lots of things in it, of course...
>
> Incidentally I told my son Ray about Ecosia, and his response was 'I know!
> I use it all the time! I told you about it a year ago! You never listen to
> what I say!'
>
> Edward
>
> On 05/12/2019 21:20, Max Herman via NetBehaviour wrote:
>
> Hi Edward,
>
> It's always encouraging to hear of products that incorporate an element of
> philanthropy, social responsibility, or environmental sustainability in
> their raison d'etre.  It seems that a hybrid of individual economic choices
> combined with the best legislation possible would be the most hopeful path
> forward.
>
> Perhaps because of reading something else recently about Wallace Stevens,
> I was reminded of hearing about your "Thirteen Ways of Looking at a
> Blackbird" project and re-read the poem (which I had read but not studied
> closely in the past).  Bird poems have a very rich and ancient history so
> it was good to read it again.
>
> I thought Haddam would mean some ancient city when he asked why its "thin
> men" "imagine golden birds," somewhat like "Sailing to Byzantium," but it's
> actually a town in Connecticut.  The poem is truly marvelous, which makes
> me wish I'd read it better sooner.  Oh well!
>
> I'm also reminded of seeing some red-winged blackbirds at Lands End
> national park last October.  The drought had dried everything to a brown
> tinder, fires were raging very close to the city, and there were three
> birds with piercing eyes in the shrubs next to the parking spot we were
> in.  I think one even hopped onto the hood of our car, or almost landed on
> our windshield -- it was one of those startling moments one sometimes has
> with nature.  After watching them a bit I saw the red wings of one when it
> jumped to a new shrub, and got very excited: "they're red-winged
> blackbirds!"
>
> At a conference in late 2018 I spoke briefly to neurologist and author Dr.
> James Austin about his latest book, written in his early 90's.  He noted
> that the term for mindfulness in zen is actually more like re-mindfulness,
> as in the title of his book, not quite the same as remembering but
> similar.  I asked him if he thought mindfulness related to literature, and
> he said his new book (which I bought but haven't read) includes a lot about
> haiku, which he likes to write.  He said that the book included a lot about
> birds, and that early zen considered bird songs as a reminder of our true
> consciousness, "a reminder to look upward."
>
> Which brings me circuitously to my question -- do you consider Stevens'
> poem to contain any treatment of networks or a "network perspective" in
> it?  I most definitely do, but I see networks everywhere I look these days
> -- in apples, crackers, glasses of water, paper, carvings of bison, you
> name it.  I see elements of network reality in each stanza of the poem,
> copied below, in very grand variety; the more grand in that they are not
> networks about wires, chips, monitors, computers, TVs, radios, etc. etc. ad
> infinitum.  Incidentally, the Stevens poem I know best and have had
> memorized since the early nineties is "The Emperor of Ice Cream."  I think
> I shall try to add one more.
>
> Best regards,
>
> Max
>
> +++++
>
> *I*
> Among twenty snowy mountains,
> The only moving thing
> Was the eye of the blackbird.
>
> *II*
> I was of three minds,
> Like a tree
> In which there are three blackbirds.
>
> *III*
> The blackbird whirled in the autumn winds.
> It was a small part of the pantomime.
>
> *IV*
> A man and a woman
> Are one.
> A man and a woman and a blackbird
> Are one.
>
> *V*
> I do not know which to prefer,
> The beauty of inflections
> Or the beauty of innuendoes,
> The blackbird whistling
> Or just after.
>
> *VI*
> Icicles filled the long window
> With barbaric glass.
> The shadow of the blackbird
> Crossed it, to and fro.
> The mood
> Traced in the shadow
> An indecipherable cause.
>
> *VII*
> O thin men of Haddam,
> Why do you imagine golden birds?
> Do you not see how the blackbird
> Walks around the feet
> Of the women about you?
>
> *VIII*
> I know noble accents
> And lucid, inescapable rhythms;
> But I know, too,
> That the blackbird is involved
> In what I know.
>
> *IX*
> When the blackbird flew out of sight,
> It marked the edge
> Of one of many circles.
>
> *X*
> At the sight of blackbirds
> Flying in a green light,
> Even the bawds of euphony
> Would cry out sharply.
>
> *XI*
> He rode over Connecticut
> In a glass coach.
> Once, a fear pierced him,
> In that he mistook
> The shadow of his equipage
> For blackbirds.
>
> *XII*
> The river is moving.
> The blackbird must be flying.
>
> *XIII*
> It was evening all afternoon.
> It was snowing
> And it was going to snow.
> The blackbird sat
> In the cedar-limbs.
>
>
>
>
>
> ------------------------------
> *From:* NetBehaviour <netbehaviour-bounces at lists.netbehaviour.org>
> <netbehaviour-bounces at lists.netbehaviour.org> on behalf of Edward Picot
> via NetBehaviour <netbehaviour at lists.netbehaviour.org>
> <netbehaviour at lists.netbehaviour.org>
> *Sent:* Thursday, December 5, 2019 2:00 PM
> *To:* NetBehaviour for networked distributed creativity
> <netbehaviour at lists.netbehaviour.org>
> <netbehaviour at lists.netbehaviour.org>
> *Cc:* Edward Picot <julian.lesaux at gmail.com> <julian.lesaux at gmail.com>
> *Subject:* [NetBehaviour] Ecosia
>
> Dear all,
>
> Via an RCGP (Royal College of General Physicians) toolkit on how to make
> medicine more environmentally friendly, I just came across a search
> engine called Ecosia. The RCGP recommends that we (meaning everyone in
> primary care, ie. all doctors' surgeries in the UK) should set Ecosia
> instead of Google as the default search engine on whatever browser we
> happen to use, because the money Ecosia makes from advertising is all
> put towards reforestation schemes.
>
> I've spent part of the day changing the browsers in our surgery so
> they've now all got Ecosia as the default search engine. You've probably
> all heard about this initiative already, but I'd never come across it
> before. I've been browsing their website and they do seem to be doing
> genuine good work. So, I thought I'd pass on the information.
>
> Edward
>
> PS - very interesting debate about AI in music, sparked by Simon Mclennan!
>
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