Today I finished Song of Susannah, the next-to-last volume in Stephen King's Dark Tower series, books that King started as a teenager and that he claims will end his career -- he's vowed that the final volume in the series will also be his last book.

I believe him. He's doing the thing that Asimov and Heinlein did at the ends of their careers, tying in the loose ends of all his old work and name-checking and referencing all the writers who influenced him.

But unlike bad end-of-career novels like Heinlein's Cat Who Walks Through Walls, Song of Susannah is a sharp and tight book, a comparatively slim book of only 400 or so pages. I raced through it in just a couple sittings, devouring the yarn at speed and wanting at once for it to be over and for it never to end.

For King's Dark Tower quest is an astonishing series of novels, rich and wide and deep, drunk on prose and on the best characterization of King's creer. There's plenty King's written that I haven't cared for, but I'd crawl on glass to get my hands on the final installment of the series.

This volume in the story is about itself as much as it is about the characters and their quest. King's theories on writing are very sound, and this story is as much about how we read and understand and use stories as it is a story in and of itself.

But it's never preachy and it's never dull. King's story, which has all the hallmarks of cliche, manages to be both startingly original and utterly sane and crazy. Link

Update: Apparently, King has repudiated his vow to stop writing

Someone just posted a track by the "Mario and Zelda Big Band" on a private file-sharing site I'm on. This is a Japanese big band fronted by a singer whose delivery reminds me of the frontwoman for Orquesta De La Luz (my favorite Japanese salsa band), and backed by a huge horn and winds section. They've got a CD of a live performance of music from classic Nintendo games, with invented Japanese words and super tight Latin jazz melodies. I've just ordered the scorchingly expensive CD and while I wait for it to arrive, I guess I'll just keep this one track in heavy rotation. It's fantastic. Link

Ground crew member Alan Radecki says:

Hi All, The FAA spaceport license came through today, and almost immediately, signs went up at the airport. Pics are now up on the Mojave Airport Weblog as well as a couple aerials showing the parking & RV areas that I shot this morning from our helo. For those who'll be in the RV park, sounds like the NASA interns will be throwing a big party with a band and all.

Link to part 3, Link to part 2, Link to part 1. Handy overview photo that shows the Mojave Airport scene where the ship will launch on Monday: Link. (Thanks, Todd Lappin)

Not tomorrow, but next Saturday June 26 at the Directors Guild in Los Angeles from 10AM - 1PM:

Symposium on Copyright, Piracy, and the Future of Independent Filmmaking: The MPAA's screener ban was a wake-up call to the independent film community. With our future threatened, the community joined together and was eventually successful in defeating the ban in federal court. But policy is being created every day, at every level, that impacts the channels for distribution, access to independent films, and the protection of creative rights. This symposium (the first of two parts) offers a forum for critical analysis and debate about these important issues -- issues that are not easily or often addressed among the very people they impact most: independent filmmakers. Our goal is to form strategic alliances that will help us maintain and extend a production and distribution environment where independent filmmaking can continue to thrive. Part II of the Symposium will take place at the IFP Market in New York on September 26.

Join Lawrence Lessig, named one of Scientific American's Top 50 Visionaries and author of The Future of Ideas and Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace examine copyright and anti-piracy policies affecting the motion picture industry today and the future of the independent filmmaker. Following a coffee break, a panel of experts and advocates will join him, including Robert Greenwald, (Uncovered: The Whole Truth About the Iraq War, Burning Bed), producer, director and documentary filmmaker.

$15, located at 7920 Sunset Blvd. @ Fairfax. More on the fest: Link

This photo is amazing. I wonder if that cord provides power for the "blades" to move in some way? Link (to higher res image) (Thanks, Carlo!)

President Bush's family has made a lot of money from drug companies and still has very close ties to the pharmaceutical industry. (Bush Sr was on Eli Lilly's board of directors and Bush Jr appointed Lilly's CEO to a senior position on the Homeland Security Council.)

According to this British Medical Journal article, "Lilly made $1.6m in political contributions in 2000—82% of which went to Bush and the Republican Party. "

So it's not surprising that the President announced a plan to screen the entire US population for mental illness and pump lots and lots of people full of expensive Eli Lilly drugs. Bush's commission has recommended that the federal government adopt a model based on the Texas Medication Algorithm Project (TMAP) a medication treatment plan that recommends Zyprexa as a first line antipsychotic drug for patients. Bush was governor of Texas when the plan was adopted, and Zyprexa coincidentally happens to be made Eli Lilly. It's the drug company's top seller, grossing $4.28 billion dollars last year. According to the article, "A 2003 New York Times article by Gardiner Harris reported that 70% of olanzapine sales are paid for by government agencies, such as Medicare and Medicaid."

But the Texas project, which promotes the use of newer, more expensive antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs, sparked off controversy when Allen Jones, an employee of the Pennsylvania Office of the Inspector General, revealed that key officials with influence over the medication plan in his state received money and perks from drug companies with a stake in the medication algorithm (15 May, p1153). He was sacked this week for speaking to the BMJ and the New York Times.

Mr Jones told the BMJ that the same "political/pharmaceutical alliance" that generated the Texas project was behind the recommendations of the New Freedom Commission, which, according to his whistleblower report, were "poised to consolidate the TMAP effort into a comprehensive national policy to treat mental illness with expensive, patented medications of questionable benefit and deadly side effects, and to force private insurers to pick up more of the tab."

Link

My friend Alex at University of California Press gave me a review copy of the book Thing Knowledge: A Philosophy of Scientific Instruments by Davis Baird. Sounds heavy, but on first glance it seems that Baird has balanced deep philosophy with fun machine history! The illustrations and vintage photographs are a treat too. I'm looking forward to digging into it. From Peter Galison's blurb on the back:

"Grappling with a wonderful assortment of objects--from antique orreries to modern spectrographs--Davis Baird draws the reader deep into fascinating questions about the nature of knowledge. As lucid on the semantic account of theories as it is on the inner workings of the cyclotron, this book that brings the laboratory to philosophers and philosophy into the laboratory."

Warning: At $65, it's a pricey book, probably due to a limited print run. Link
Update: BB reader Nate has a good point: "If you think it will be too pricy for individuals to purchase, you should encourage people to ask their libraries to purchase it. More sales for U. Cal. Press, far more potential readers."

papermoon | origami | paper plate origami | design a paper box | boxbots | papercraft | ivor the engine | paper toys | nasa paper models | video game characters | paper arcades | flying pig.
Links to web zen home, web zen store, (Thanks, Frank).

Sean Bonner says, "Jason DeFillippo and I have launched Metroblogging which is the first step of global expansion of our LA blog, blogging.la. The first cities live are New York City, Chicago and San Francisco. Like b.la, we're hoping these sites will become a good street-level view of life in these cities." Link

In which our protagonists are asked,"So, you got a license for that spaceport?"

Hi all, Not sure what the hitch is, but the designation of MHV as the first commercial inland spaceport didn't happen by the FAA as expected yesterday... stay tuned.

Regarding broadcasts and webcasts of the launch: CNN is reportedly going to do a live broadcast, don't know if that'll reach Europe. Local radio station KLOA FM 104.9 has the exclusive radio rights to direct feed, and it now sounds as if they'll be live webcasting the audio here. There is now a map of the public parking area up on the the airport site here. There really is no other news to report this morning. It's a gorgeous, if somewhat warm day.

-- Alan Radecki

Link to part one, Link to part two. (Thanks, Todd Lappin)

NYT story on an interactive art installation that toys with the surreal, free-association results of Internet keyword searches. David Ayman Shamma of Northwestern University, and Kristian J. Hammond of Northwestern University have created "Imagination Environment," currently on display in Chicago.

[The exhibit] starts with a live television news broadcast that is displayed at the center of a wall-mounted array of nine computer monitors. A software program scans the broadcast's closed-caption stream and selects keywords that prompt Internet searches for images. Seconds after the live audio is heard, the news broadcast is surrounded by pertinent photographs and illustrations on adjacent screens, as well as some images completely unrelated.

"The words tend to be linked to a strange combination of images that are on point and strikingly bizarre," Professor Hammond said.

For instance, during a recent televised briefing by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, a reference to troops was as likely to retrieve a photograph of Girl Scouts as one of soldiers. But a mention of the secretary's title only generated a cartoon drawing of an administrative assistant.

Registration-free Link, and Link to artists' site (thanks Tony)

Fascinating Australian Broadcasting Co science piece on the latest research in neuron production:

we do know a couple of things that stimulate brain cell production. One of them, of course is anti-depressants, which we now know probably the key molecule by which this acts, because we’ve been able to purify these cells that make neurons and we know what are the receptors that bind molecules. And one of these receptors turn out to be a receptor for a neurotrophine, a molecule that keeps nerve cells alive traditionally. But we know that anti-depressants raise the molecule that binds to this receptor and we now know that this is the factor that can stimulate the production of new nerve cells. So we think we’ve made the connection between anti-depressants and production of new nerve cells. But there are many other ways of stimulating the production and some of them are pretty damned interesting. One is if you put an animal on a wheel and let it run ad libitum and they run up to about 10 kilometres overnight, they make about twice as many neurones.

The other thing is that certain molecules produced during sex also appear to be highly stimulatory of neuronal production. Prolactin levels, which pregnant women have enormous amounts of, also stimulate large amounts (of neurons).

Link (Thanks, Adrian!)

Mind-blowing article about the European and Chinese challenges to the received wisdom on traffic planning and calming, arguing that the separation of peds and cars leads to less-safe streets:

"The more you post the evidence of legislative control, such as traffic signs, the less the driver is trying to use his or her own senses," says Hamilton-Baillie, noting he has a habit of walking randomly across roads -- much to his wife's consternation. "So the less you can advertise the presence of the state in terms of authority, the more effective this approach can be." This, of course, is the exact opposite of the "Triple E" traffic-calming approach, which seeks to control the driver through the use of speed bumps, photo radar, crosswalks and other engineering and enforcement mechanisms.

The "self-reading street" has its roots in the Dutch "woonerf" design principles that emerged in the 1970s. Blurring the boundary between street and sidewalk, woonerfs combine innovative paving, landscaping and other urban designs to allow for the integration of multiple functions in a single street, so that pedestrians, cyclists and children playing share the road with slow-moving cars. The pilot projects were so successful in fostering better urban environments that the ideas spread rapidly to Belgium, France, Denmark and Germany. In 1998, the British government adopted a "Home Zones" initiative -- the woonerf equivalent -- as part of its national transportation policy.

"What the early woonerf principles realized," says Hamilton-Baillie, "was that there was a two-way interaction between people and traffic. It was a vicious or, rather, a virtuous circle: The busier the streets are, the safer they become. So once you drive people off the street, they become less safe."

Salon Link (Reg/Ads Req'd) (via Kottke)

Fun Furde founds these pretty, design-y lamps with War of the Worlds styling that you turn on by means of an ignition key. Link (Thanks, Fun Furde!)

These punch-and-stick chairs ("3 chairs are routed out of one sheet of 8x4 15mm Birch faced ply-wood or MDF. 126 flat pack units will fit on a standard euro pallet. The excess wood is its own packaging. Easily assembled in minutes by the end user. Chairfix was inspired by Airfix model kits and is easily assembled by the consumer useing a mallet") are amazing -- so much smarter than traditional hex-key-and-swearing flatpack furniture. Link (via Gizmodo)