Week 3

11.19.2001

They're very delicate things, blogs. Link rot sets in, and by their very nature you're always ducking in and out of them, to distant, rusty, dodgy, possibly defunct machines, run by goofy extremists and sinister foreigners.... It's a performance art.

I was boasting that we'd go on with this blog until our brains exploded or the backers ran out of money. I don't know about you, but so far, my brain's just fine. Surf's up!

I'm contemplating getting into SCHISM MATRIX action figures. It can't be any more peculiar than these Mormon superheros from the Golden Tablets of Moroni.

http://www.lehi.com/vin1.html

Perhaps they'll share some shelf space with these lovely Clive Barker action figures!

http://www.newtimesla.com/issues/
2001-07-12/sidecar.html

Or, we might go for some custom war-game figurines. I'm figuring the "HardWire Troupe" for a portrait of the core SCHISM MATRIX readership.

http://www.wargamesfoundry.com/news/
010711/010711g.htm

11.20.2001

There aren't enough cool pictures in my blog yet. Normally, I would just pilfer some fair-use pics off the Internet to dress the joint up some, but since this site is semi-official and involves some revenue, the issue of copyright violation has to go all touchy, and DMCA-ish, and Microsofty. Yuck!

So I'll have to provide *my own graphic content.* No problem. I've got a camera.

A peculiarly unattractive mermaid child in Munich.

Franz von Stuck's mailbox. Stuck was a noted fin de siecle decadent artist. If you're a postman, you're supposed to stick your cargo through this creature's teeth.

Chee Pearlman, design-wonk goddess and former editor of I.D. magazine, examining a post-industrial blobject at the IDEO offices in San Francisco. Just knowing Chee is out there cheers me all up.

11.21.2001

Let's say you're a restless young man with a lot of testosterone, a camera and a laptop. Can you still throw on a trenchcoat and find a whole world of trouble, foreign-correspondent style? Yep. You bet you can.

http://www.linder.com/berserk/journal.html

*Unfortunately, the "Berserkistan" site ran out of money and, apparently, also ran out of war. Where is Jim Bartlett now? His website is no longer maintained, and it is gently decaying. Like so many in new media, Jim has plowed the sea. If you find Jim and he hasn't stepped on a landmine, say hi.

http://www.linder.com/berserk/bartlett.html

There are still some bits and pieces of Bartlett's work left over on other sites. So much for the wacky notion that the Internet backs up its own content.

http://www.haverford.edu/relg/sells/berserk/
ghosts.html

They stopped shooting. Then they stopped paying web journalists.

http://venus.elfak.ni.ac.yu/~kris/acke/
blahs.html

11.22.2001

Depress your view of human nature with this vast catalog of evil fraud schemes.

http://www.crimes-of-persuasion.com/
contents.htm

The author of this website claims to be merely an amateur devotee of fraud.

http://www.crimes-of-persuasion.com/
author.htm

You might imagine that only gullible, poorly educated dupes can fall for this kind of stuff.

http://www.crimes-of-persuasion.com/
Crimes/Telemarketing/Outbound/
Major/Investments/wacky.htm

Until you hear of a few Internet stock scams, that is.

http://www.crimes-of-persuasion.com/
Crimes/Telemarketing/Outbound/
Major/Investments/high_tech.htm

11.23.2001

Here's a lovely Japanese photo of one of Philippe Starck's inimitable masterworks, the transparent "La Marie" chair. Despite its daintily feminine name, this chair has a gender problem. Men look at this chair and think "Whoa! It even stacks!" And women think: "Oh my god, everyone in the world will see my ass right through that."

http://plaza11.mbn.or.jp/~kukan/furniture/
marie.html

Bruce Sterling is a science-fiction writer who lives in Texas. The sun is a G-type star out towards the edge of the Milky Way.