This was stuck in the queue for this space, popping the stack to bring it forward.
In the NYRB, Nicholas Kristoff says, poignantly:
Far too much aid money is spent financing conferences where experts gather to wring their hands. I once spoke to a UN conference on achieving millennium development goals, and as I looked out at the vast audience of aid workers gathered from around the world all I could think was: if only this conference had been canceled, the money could have gone to build schools and clinics, and then we'd be closer to achieving the millennium goals.
Nicholas D Kristoff, NYRB, 5 October 2006
What if more realistic collaboration solutions, designed for low-reliability networks, but with rich discursive features, could be put in play. Could they be developed and adopted cheaply enough to not just add money to the problems?
Technorati Tags: collaboration
Though we're all excited here at KJP about the news that there may be a new My Bloody Valentine album coming in 2008, we've been able to tide ourselves over with an echo of MBV provided courtesy of Japancakes.
In a gift of the magi moment, AZ and I each bought the other a copy of "Loveless" as performed by Japancakes, a reverential track-by-track tribute to the seminal My Bloody Valentine record of the same name.
However contrived the project would seem on the surface (covers are harder than they seem), the instrumentation is fully changed across the record in construct and production, lending a different feel to the whole thing while retaining its otherworldly nature. In some ways the acoustic-in-electronic instrumentation is evocative of the Amiina record "Kurr" from the past year, particularly the (sparing) use of the bowed saw, this decade's theremin. If you're familiar with the original Loveless, you'll find the 'next track' feeling challenged, as the percussion is lighter, but the spaces just as airy and dense in turn.
Good stuff, great gift - certainly worth a lock of your hair. Recommended.
Technorati Tags: music, MyBloodyValentine, japancakes