Year of the Ether

Back on 10-11-2005 this blog started out with something on the order of a note about Elmore James and feedback. This blog was a replacement for my Radio Weblog – which had overburdened my PC.

Tried to stay to a narrower topic on this one, and seemed to have run out of steam concerning certain planetary matters. The moon is getting shorter shrift for sure. It was about a kid growing up with technology as an overwhelming undercurrent. Where art met science and sparks flew. Meant to write about Wayne McGuire and his opus 1968 essay on the Velvet Underground. But it’s still on the todo list. A list of learning about electronic machines and waking up the era of google – inside the contraption.

But continued to write essays when I felt, and reviews when I heard or read stuff.
Looking ahead: May go with the flow again – that and continue to place bpieces of observes apparatus time in this binary archive [for future visitors?] – may try to narrow things down again, always a problematic quest.

This site will continue to be something of an experiment. Used it last year to learn about MP3 and podcasts and RSS Includes, etc. Some of the things you may see wonder why its there, well, maybe, sometimes, it is part of Moon Herald Traveller Labs experimental aspect. With delic.io.us and Digg Swarm and the NYTimes Reader and Flickr – their continues to be a whole lotta shaking going on – they call it Web 2.0.

The latest in way of experiment is the introduction here of “Google AdSense.” Is the Jackster going commercial, a voice in the pantry asks. No, it’s not really about the $35 or $40 I may accumulate before the end of the millennium via placed Google ads. It’s just that Google AdSense has become an intrinsic Internet artifact that I should try to understand with my own hands, not just intellectually. Google went from nothing to billions and billions with these little clingy pattern recognizers, which became for many the golden lucre of the Ether. Sometimes I wonder – I hear sirens – if AdSense and clickthroughs aren’t just a variation on the famous Ponzi scheme - as mutable, critical, and silly as the bulbs in the Restoration Dutch Tulip market implosion, or closer to home, as tenuously viable as Web 1.0.

But I thought I should see how AdSense works: And here are the results: The engine was stymied for a few hours – couldn’t find anything to adhere. Then in the 10th hour it started posting RNA tags, but these didn’t lead to ads. Then, at about the 20 hour mark, it saw multiple references to Dylan. Which made for useful clickable ad info. Dylan is going to be a mile from here at BU on 11.11! Course the next question is Where’s the money, although, to his credit, his prices are not gougers.

What do you think of the ads? What do you think of Kim Ill Jong? Have you heard Jerry Lee’s new record. It is great when people comment via email or comments or what.. as with the Dylan thread of Sept 2006. See you in the Ether! Throw out the compass! Prepare to reverse polarization! -Jack Vaughan