Automated updates: 2020-06-20

2020-06-19-week.md

@@ -50,6 +50,10 @@ Anyway...
 
  > The move puts one of the internet’s largest repositories of knowledge in peril.
 
+As the article points out, there's *nothing* like the Internet Archive around, and it's been taking increasing risks.  My specific concern about the "Emergency Library" is specifically that it had nothing to do with the pandemic on the surface, instead making its messaging about popular novels.
+
+Had they limited their selection to textbooks and works of importance, nobody would have raised an eyebrow.
+
 ## 12:05 -- Mon 15 June 2020
 
 [<i class="fab fa-twitter"></i>](https://twitter.com/jcolag/status/1272560749303513090)
@@ -64,6 +68,8 @@ Anyway...
 
  > ...the real answer isn’t a set of basic reforms but completely dismantling the current system of police and prisons, and rebuilding a system that actually works.
 
+It's good to see activists having an increasingly complete picture of what an unpoliced society might look like other than "the suburbs," which is certainly legitimate, but unhelpful.  It helps to push back on the "well, what are you going to do when...?" questions that are demanding a two- or three-word answer, so that they can point out how that's just policing with a different name.
+
 ## 12:03 -- Tue 16 June 2020
 
 [<i class="fab fa-twitter"></i>](https://twitter.com/jcolag/status/1272922633865060354)
@@ -88,6 +94,8 @@ Related: [This map reveals 1,747 monuments and other Confederate symbols of Amer
 
  > Lee went on to tell a New York Herald reporter that setting slaves free would be bad for black people...
 
+I've been saying, recently, that the fact that we don't have any statues honoring [Nat Turner](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nat_Turner's_slave_rebellion), [Madison Washington](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madison_Washington), [Gabriel Prosser](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gabriel_Prosser), or anybody else who led a slave rebellion disproves the assertion that the statues are meant to teach history or honor heritage.  The sole purpose of the statues is to remind people of white supremacy.
+
 ## 12:01 -- Wed 17 June 2020
 
 [<i class="fab fa-twitter"></i>](https://twitter.com/jcolag/status/1273284518300934145)
@@ -106,6 +114,8 @@ Related: [Science explains why unconscious bias training won’t reduce workplac
 
  > Contrary to popular belief, our beliefs and attitudes are not strongly related to our behaviors. Psychologists have known this for over a century, but businesses seem largely unaware of it.
 
+This is all related to what I was getting at in my [banana in the ear]({% post_url 2020-03-15-banana %}) post, that we can't let ourselves be judged by our *labels*, when those labels and intentions might contradict our actions.  After five hundred years of conditioning and reshaping society, we need to actively avoid being racist, rather than just pointing to our non-white friends and claiming to be an ally.
+
 ## 12:04 -- Thu 18 June 2020
 
 [<i class="fab fa-twitter"></i>](https://twitter.com/jcolag/status/1273647661309202434)
@@ -120,6 +130,8 @@ Related: [Science explains why unconscious bias training won’t reduce workplac
 
  > The presentation discussed the “benefits” of “content control.” And it offered one example of a topic employers might find it useful to blacklist: the word “unionize.”
 
+Large companies, especially in Silicon Valley, have proven themselves so thoroughly anti-Labor, that it's hard to believe that Facebook isn't already using this internally and is only bothered that people outside of customers know it.
+
 ## 12:02 -- Fri 19 June 2020
 
 [<i class="fab fa-twitter"></i>](https://twitter.com/jcolag/status/1274009545858113538)
@@ -142,7 +154,7 @@ Even with an ongoing pandemic, continuing rallies to protect Black lives from po
 
  > I don’t think any human endeavor has ever saved so many lives in such a short period of time. There have been huge personal costs to staying home and canceling events, but the data show that each day made a profound difference. By using science and cooperating, we changed the course of history.
 
-Consider that as states re-open without much of a plan.  Please continue to stay away from crowds and wear masks when you're with people.  We already have a lot of people whose infections *weren't* prevented and don't need more.
+Consider that, as states re-open without much of a plan.  Please continue to stay away from crowds and wear masks when you're with people.  We already have a lot of people whose infections *weren't* prevented and don't need more.  I assume that nobody reading this blog is anti-science or opposed to protecting their communities, but in case you stumbled in here from some hellhole...
 
 * * *
 

2020-06-20-dream.md

@@ -0,0 +1,65 @@
+---
+layout: post
+title: Free Culture Book Club - Elephants Dream
+date: 2020-06-20 08:08:12-0400
+categories:
+tags: [freeculture, bookclub, blender]
+summary: Discussing Elephants Dream, the Blender Open Project
+thumbnail: /blog/assets/ElephantsDreamPoster.png
+offset: -31%
+---
+
+This week, our [Free Culture Book Club]({% post_url 2020-05-02-freeculture %}) digs into the first of the [Blender Foundation](https://www.blender.org/foundation/)'s Open Movie Projects, **Elephants Dream**, code-named *Orange*, for people who care about such things.
+
+![Elephants Dream poster](/blog/assets/ElephantsDreamPoster.png "Elephants Dream poster")
+
+To give this series some sense of organization, here are some basic facts without much in the way of context.
+
+ * Full Title:  **Elephants Dream**
+ * Location:  <https://orange.blender.org/>
+ * Released:  2006
+ * License:  CC-BY 2.5 Generic
+ * Creators:  Orange Open Movie Team (full crew [listed here](https://orange.blender.org/theteam/))
+ * Medium:  Animated short
+ * Length:  11 minutes
+ * Content Advisories:  Some fantasy violence
+
+This should go without saying---even though I'm going to repeat it with every Book Club installment---but *Content Advisories* are not any sort of judgment on my part, just topics that come up in the work that I noticed and might benefit from a particular mood or head space for certain audiences.  It's to help you make a decision, rather than a decision in and of itself.
+
+## Elephants Dream
+
+If you haven't already seen it, here it is.
+
+<iframe src="//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Elephants_Dream_(2006).webm?embedplayer=yes" width="740" height="417" frameborder="0" webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen></iframe>
+
+I know that this was an introduction to both the Blender software and Free Culture.
+
+## What Works Well?
+
+The visuals are stunning, from the weird geography to the various robots.  Even the human characters mostly avoid the [uncanny valley](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley) in their cartoonish features.  It's a literal showcase for 3D animation, though, so that shouldn't be too surprising.
+
+There's also a world where reality can be twisted by intention, whether or not the individual maintainers (*are* they maintainers?) actually believe that the reality is at all flexible.
+
+## What Works...Less Well?
+
+At least to me---maybe I'm just too dim to fully enjoy something like this---the plot feels thin to the point of incoherence.  We have no idea who these characters are, why Proog cares whether Emo believes in the machine, or even what the machine does.  The goal of the movie is *definitely* more about the visuals than the story, though.
+
+## Opportunities
+
+The project has been complete for fourteen years, so there probably isn't much room to participate in the project, beyond remaking or extending it.  However, the Blender Foundation makes these sorts of projects happen semi-regularly.  To fund this work, they sell merchandise and a [subscription service](https://store.blender.org/product/membership/) that includes the digital assets to all the movies (and more), books, and training courses.
+
+## What's Adaptable?
+
+The Blender Open Projects are unique in that they release *everything* for their movies.  After fourteen years, it's harder to find the files outside of the [archive on Blender Cloud](https://cloud.blender.org/p/elephants-dream/55f2d0dd2beb33006e43dd8c), which is a subscription service.  If you want the 3D models, script, audio, sound effects, and so forth, it might be worth paying the €9.90 ($11.50USD, at the moment) for a month or two to save yourself the trouble of hunting down the specific pieces that interest you.
+
+To make changes, you would need to learn Blender (both [Wikibooks](https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Blender_3D:_Noob_to_Pro) and [Floos Manuals](http://write.flossmanuals.net/blender/introduction/) have decent books Free Culture on the subject), but if you want to rewrite the script (and re-record the dialogue) or spin off those robot birds into a new movie, that's something you can do.  If you're ambitious enough to build a sequel, that's also possible.
+
+## Next
+
+We'll try some prose, next time, looking at the introductory [Ascension Epoch](https://www.ascensionepoch.com/) short story, *Won't You Come In?*.  Sign up for their mailing list to get a copy.
+
+While we put off the first actual reading for our book club, does anybody have opinions on **Elephants Dream**?  Anybody figure out what the heck it's about...?
+
+* * *
+
+**Credits**:  The header image is **Elephants Dream**'s official movie poster, made available under the same CC-BY 2.5 license as the remainder of the series.