The Highest Form of Flattery

In this time of change and progress, it is comforting to know that there are still a few things that have not changed. Especially if there was not anything particularly faulty about them to begin with. An encouraging example of this periodic preservation is the time-honoured tradition of song sharing. The notion of artists sharing has existed from the very beginnings of recorded music. In point of fact, were it not for what are now known as “cover songs”, the early 20th century recording industry would have barely existed. Even as late as the 1990s, there were examples of cover versions that came to be more widely known and better regarded than the original version. A prime example of this is the ditty “I Go Blind”. Originating with the Canadian minstrels known as 54-40, the tune became better known in the version performed by Hootie and the Blowfish. At least in North America. 

Since the initial imposition of social and political issues onto the digital speakers-corner referred to as “Social Media”, there have come to be jokes about when YouTube was just for “chatty vlogs, amateur musicians and cute cat videos.” Despite this being meant somewhat sardonically, there is also a grain of truth to this statement. There have long been amateur (and later professional) musicians who have used the video-sharing site as a means of trying to build a career.

There has also come to be an increase in the types and styles of songs being used for cover versions. Many of the covers done by Violinist/Dancer Lindsay Stirling and her compatriots, Cellist Tina Guo and the string quartet String Theory, revolve around popular culture. Particularly that in the Science-Fiction and Fantasy genres. Another interesting tendency materializing in the world of cover songs is the notion of willfully crossing genres. The cello quartet Apocalyptica, for example, specialize in covers of songs by Metallica, Motörhead and Pantera. This also extends to independently based musicians such as Lady Morwen who does a transcendent piano rendition of “Keelhauled” by the Scottish Pirate-Metal band Alestorm and Lady Chugun who manages to make Metal and Punk songs work for the accordion. An achievement on par with executing a banjo-driven Hip-Hop track. A heroic feat so far only Mr. B the Gentleman Rhymer has managed to achieve.

Someone else who has helped keep things interesting is Jazz Pianist Scott Bradlee. Founder and band leader of Scott Bradlee’s Postmodern Jukebox. With an ever shifting group of like-minded melody aficionados, it is Mr. Bradlee’s stated ambition to expand musical horizons of the culture at large. As he explained  in his TEDx lecture, “A Bizarro World of Pop Music”, when he used to be asked what sort of music he preferred, he would respond “a bit of everything”. Which he says felt a bit too easy. Until, that is, he realized the fact that “all songs are just songs.” Sets of words and melodies that can be arranged in any way you want, the notion of “genres”  being arbitrary at best. An argument he goes on to prove by doing Jazz renditions of songs from nearly every known modern genre. Working closely with Mr. Bradlee and his Postmodern Jukebox is Jazz Singer and Pin-Up Model Robyn Adele Anderson. Still greater in her ambitions than Mr. Bradlee, Ms. Anderson is even more bold in terms of her experimentation. A Big Band version of Shakira’s “Whenever, Wherever” in fluent Spanish and an unbelievable, in the most literal sense, Swing version of “Smells Like Teen Spirit” being among her most gobsmacking projects.

The outlook is also  no longer quite so dismal as it once was in terms of the financial aspect. Despite a few shenanigans in the beginning, particularly in terms of the YouTube monetization system, the profit structure as related to online material has become much more standardized and predictable with crowed funding sites and systems like GoFundMe and Patreon coming to the fore, mostly allowing performers to succeed or fail on their own terms and their own merits.

Self(ish)

It has become something of a fashion for ideas to come into the public consciousness and then to be held as concrete, ironclad "truths". This is particularly true if the notion allows for, at least the appearance of, personal or moral superiority. One such idea that has actually reversed in recent years is the assumption that only criminals and soldiers have tattoos. While thoroughly ridiculous, this instance of tomfoolery was believed by large swaths of society until very recently. These days such petty,  preposterous, presumptions are still common, particularly with regard to technology. A situation reaching all the way back to the beginnings of the digital age. While it was once popular to dismiss computers as "mere toys", the sands have begun to shift, beginning with the advent of social media and fully mobile digital devices and now many speak as though such devices have the power to shape the very form of the human mind.

Among the most common, and egregious, of the claims being made with regard to contemporary media infrastructures is that it is leading to a marked and unprecedented increase in the instances of so-called narcissism. 

To begin with the use of the term in the majority of contexts is faulty or at the very least based upon a false premise. Narcissism refers to a state in which an individual believes that everything that occurs, both positive and negative, occurs because of them. What most people are usually talking about in such churlish condemnations is megalomania. Though even this designation is rather over-stating the case, as well as being farcically narrow in scope. The apparent increase in seemingly self-centred behaviour has its basis not in prevalence but rather awareness. Citizens are no more self-centred now than they have been at any other point in human history. The primary
difference is that, presently, people have become more able to put themselves into the public sphere with changes both in terms of recording as well as distribution due to advances, or at least refinements, in  technology. As a result the general populous have become more aware of what would have formerly been private citizens. According to author Douglas Coupland "this internet thingy has, in the most McLuhanistic sense, become a true externalization of our interior selves."

Partly what makes screeds against self-documentation, particularly selfies, is absurd is the fact that people have found methods of documenting their bodies and lives since such means became possible, dating back to the parchment and charcoal self portraits of the Renaissance. Age-defining artist Artemisia Gentileschi was particularly known for this. Partly as a result of her having been banned from the art academies of the day due to her gender. Self-reference using mirrors became her only avenue to mastering anatomical rendering. Van Gogh is known to have done many self portraits, mostly because he couldn't get anyone else to sit for him.    The only significant difference between this form of self-portraiture and what is being done now online is the comparative ease of production and publication facilitated by digital photography and the Internet. Both of which were heralded as grand advancements when they were first launched. One tech entrepreneur going so far as to state that the Internet was "the greatest innovation since the invention of fire." Apparently he’s never heard of the telephone.

The Deep, Dark Web

Names can have a lot of power. What somethings called can have grave consequences such as the names "Greenland" and "Iceland", originally devised as a diversionary tactic to send would-be enemies to the less habitable of the two North Atlantic islands. Names can be used to both glorify and defame, sometimes in turns and also over time. Vincent Van Gogh is now known as a genius and the father of Impressionism but was more commonly referred to as "the mad dog" in his own time. A reputation which made it impossible for him to sell a single painting in his lifetime. Despite his doting brother, Theo, being an art dealer. I this age of digital over-sharing and social narrative by mob consensus, the process has rather reversed. What were once neutral, descriptors giving way to names that are calculatingly sinister, to be exploited by the unscrupulous to further their own ends. A key example of the is the so-called "Dark Web."

(The 21st Century's "Big Bad Wolf"?)

Sometimes referred to as the "Deep Web",  the terms used seemingly interchangeably, this internet under the Internet had become the new digital bogey-man, like subRedddits and 4Chan before it. Except unlike these publicly available,  traditional web-sites, subject to search-engines and the like, the "Deep Web" has the disadvantage, at lest in terms of its reputation, of being secret. Requiring specialized software to even get to it and then some pretty savvy de-encryption skills to navigate your way through. The network's anonymity, while being its greatest asset for those using it, is also the cornerstone of the dog-whistle attacks against it, by everyone from conservative politicians (many of whom would not know a web-server from a serving tray, as evidenced by the recent tet-a-tet between Republican lawmakers and billionaire boy-genius Mark Zuckerberg) to those hawking anti-virus software, using vague threats about the "Dark Web" to scare people into thinking they need stronger system security.

When something is largely unknown, it is easy to conjure the worst possible image of it. There being precious little ready evidence to the contrary. A tradition of judging something from a position of pig ignorance dating back to the Jazz Age. Moral were regularly stoked by tales of the allegedly depraved goings at the "underground" clubs of the time. The most salacious of which are tame by today's standards even if they were true which most of them simply were not.

There is also the more visceral, personal fear of the unknown so vividly displayed in the original Grimm Fairytales. All of which were meant as cautionary tales, many took place in the deep, dark, woods and dealt with the terrors assumed to dwell therein. From child-eating cottage witches to big bad wolves.

The simple fact of the matter is, the majority of  those most loudly heralding warnings against the "Dark Web" have little idea of what it actually is and havecertainly never been there. Very few actually have. As is its designed intention.  


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Gaps in the Defences

To fret about our offspring is only proper. Particularly in this modern age with all the potential risks and new avenues of communications made possible by the Internet. It is also quite understandable that sundry parents are wishing to, in one manner or another, monitor their little darling’s activities in the electronic sphere.

Myriad applications and other forms of programming have arisen to meet the call. First it was made possible to track one’s children by using the location services on their cellphone. Then to monitor what they viewed on it. One clever clogs has even devised a way in which parents can install an application onto their own devices, which will not only monitor activity on that of their children but also allow them to discontinue, remotely mind you, any further use of an application or website the child may have visited that the parents don’t like the look of. Whether or not they actually know what it is. Control over Internet use Vladimir Putin can only dream about.

Though there is, as always, a built-in weakness, an Achilles heel if you will, to all such attempts at electronic monitoring and control. Which is the statistically high amount of experience and cunning acumen so many of today’s sprogs have in terms of digital devices. There were, and continue to be, youngsters starting up their own technology enterprises, as well as foiling sophisticated digital security systems. Sometimes as trainees for the Cyber Securities industry, as well as for less altruistic, though not necessarily nefarious purposes. Julian Assange was in high school when he was first convicted of exposing classified files.

So, it is perfectly possible, if not likely, that any one of the youth of today would be capable of not only detecting but also thwarting such attempts at monitoring them. Or, if they do not, they will more than likely have a friend who does.

From A Strike to A Tap

As the march of time progresses on its merry way, there has also been an unsettling tendency for the integrity of the English language to be altered to suit. The verb “type”, for instance, did not exist in terms of writing composition until the introduction of the commercial typewriter. At this particular point in time, typewriters were functionally mechanical and technically as demanding in use as a military field rifle. The keys had to be struck with a certain amount of force to register the command, much like operating a lever or pulling a winch. This being a simple, straight-forward time, when things were called as they were, “strike” was precisely them used. Such as in the following passage from the 51st edition of Pitman’s Journal of Commercial Education published in 1896: “It will be apparent that if two keys are accidentally struck together no impression wile be made, also only one type can enter the guide at a time, and the act of striking two keys locks each, neither leaving an impression on the paper.”

So remained the case through much of the 20th century even managing survive the adoption of digitized “word processors” and affordable “personal computers” in late 1980s. A fact based in several, disparate elements, paramount among them the fact that even the new fangled “plastic” keyboards maintained an element of lovely, mechanical precision by having keys which where separate pieces spring loaded into the base. A design which still required a modicum of honest graft to operate. It was not until the turn of the last century that the new fangled “flat” keyboard began to usher in an age of sloth through simplicity. 

The fine old terms “strike” and “hit” were duly replaced by the anemic words “tap” and “click.” A situation only worsened with the introduction of touch-screens in the world. It was not long until such distasteful terminology began to claim cultural dominance, there now even being a website dedicated to mobile communication devices christened TapTapTap. While gentler in terms of terminology and association, the “taps” and “clicks” required by touch-screens can be said to rob the once proud work of typing of its rhythm, precision and passion. 


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Job Security

“Generation” is a very term of convenience. A cheap, lazy way to refer to complex age cohorts. A practice that really went of the rails with the “Baby Boomers” following WWII. While not having quite as an overtly offensive and belittling a moniker as my own “Generation X”, the cohort dubbed “Millennials”, by the culture gods in charges of arbitrating such things, have really gotten the short end of the stick in terms of the cultural attitude towards them, largely being seen as self-centred, tech-obsessed brats, who want everything handed to them. Except they are not young. At least not as young as many assume. While there tends to be disagreements about the exact dates the general consensus is that “Millennial” refers to those born between 1983 and 1995. The youngest “Millennials” are, therefore, currently 23-years-old. The oldest group are turning 35. Mark Zuckerberg is a Millennial. As are Edward Snowden, Steven Crowder and Ben Shapiro. Say what you will about them personally, no one can honestly describe any of them as lazy or entitled. They may be fobbed of haughtily as “exceptions” but that does not mean they do not exist or really lessen the impact, because they are pretty striking exceptions that directly contradict everything currently being assumed about “Millennials”. 

One of the massively underrated aspects of the “Millennial” group is their near preternatural tech. savvy. The reason that it seems like second nature to them being that this is exactly what it is. What can look like “obsession” usually just being engagement with dominant cultural paradigm. Something that can help solve the problem of underemployment. Even in the contract work so prevalent in the “gig” economy, one can have a long and healthy career simply by becoming
indispensable (you will notice I said “simply” and not “easily”). The most direct way of becoming an essential asset is to suss out a skill that you either have or can develop that is both required and not 
everyone has and then either promoting the fact that you have it or acquiring it if it is not a skill your currently have. 

A criminally under utilized area just primed 
for growth is Cyber Securities. Why this is 
not a bigger industry with a more aggressive recruiting program is something of a mystery as well as a missed opportunity. Basically legalized hacking, the job is to break into a computer network to expose weaknesses and make the system stronger to prevent actual attacks by less well intentioned folks. It is the main employment taken by reformed “Black Hat” hackers, using their powers for good, or at least in a way that unlikely to get them arrested and has roots going back to the use of Privateers. Officially mariners of the Realm, who looked and acted an awful lot like outlawed Pirates,
working under the in the employ of Elizabeth I. The ability to test security systems to expose weaknesses is an essential skill in the world of online commerce. No matter how cutting-edge the company, innovative the idea or tech-savvy the executives (Steve Jobs and Zuckerberg were both hackers in their younger
days), if a Worm, or related malicious virus,  gets through and crashes the mainframe there is no longer a company to run. So take a page from the geniuses behind anti-virus software and make it your business to keep other businesses running smoothly. You may not get a lot of glory, or even thanks, but you may well have a job for life. Or however long you might want it.     


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Same As It Ever Was

There has long been talk about the "test of time". Though with the recent increase in web-based platforms, it would also be a good idea to think in terms of the "test of technology". Which of the "old media" are unique and vital enough to survive in their original form? Which get decentralized if not obliterated by the rolling, digital juggernaut?

A traditional form which has not only survived the transition to digital but arguably thrived is live theatre. Counted among the oldest forms of human artistic endeavour, the theatre dates back to Classical Greece and is as well regarded in the now as it has been, at least since the invention of television. This is partly due to its uniqueness. The experience of live theatre simply cannot be replicated, let alone surpassed, in any other form. So, far from being subsumed by the Internet, dramatists and actors still exist as they always have. More than this they have begun to harness and utilize the massive reach of digital distribution for their own ends. In addition to the posting of live recordings of both professional and amateur theatre productions on streaming sites as a means to get wider attention, theatre groups have utilized the popularity of flash-mobs to promote upcoming productions. 

There are also other intrepid entrepreneurs have started using digital distribution as the primary vehicle for their work. A case-in-point being Paul Shapera, the genius  behind the incomparable "web musical", The Dolls of New Albion. 

Despite being released in an audio-only format, it is next to impossible to distinguish between New Albion and a recording of a traditional stage musical. To the point that it has had stage adaptations produced, which have been, in their turn, recorded and posted on streaming sites, thereby bringing everything full-circle.

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Nerd Empire

Hierarchies have long been a fact of human
existence. From prehistoric chiefs to modern
day heads of state and captains of industry,
there have always been those clinging to what
have been seen as positions of power. Even in
contexts where the leadership swear up and
down that such is not the case. Some even
going so far as to put the descriptor
“people’s” in the official name. There is,
however, subtle but vital difference between
position and power. One which the rapid
digitizations of business and government is
making increasingly clear. 

Ask most people who the most powerful person
in a company is and they will likely say the
CEO or the president. This is a perfectly
reasonable response. Especially given the
current cultural narrative in which those
with the ability to make the most decisions
are seen as the most powerful. Though thisdefinition of power is incredibly limited, based entirely, on perceived respect and the ability to control others. There are several other deviations so far power, such
as the one that puts personal autonomy and choice above all. In this chase the most powerful people in any given company are those responsible for maintaining and repairing the computer systems. 

Corporate IT departments tend to go more or
less unnoticed by the larger corporate
structure. A fact at the heart of the
brilliant British sitcom The IT Crowd.
Despite this overall lack of recognition, and
in some ways because of it, IT workers are in
one of the most powerful and privileged
positions. They might not get the same
respect or recognition as middle-managers but they also don’t really have a dress code, can
come and go as they please and never get in
trouble because a planned merger didn’t pan
out. They are in a rarefied position that has them seen, when they are noticed, as the
solution to a problem rather than the cause. They are powerless in the overall corporate context but are also primarily responsible for the computer systems on which the corporate structure is based, which makes them indispensable. So while even an all 
powerful CEO with six-figure salaries and sweeping decision making powers are still vulnerable  to having their position reminded by a vote by the board, the IT worker’s job is secure, the board members being at least smart enough to know that without a smoothly
operating computer network there would be no
business to run. 

(Edward Snowden )

This is also true in the context of government, particularly in terms of policing and intelligence agencies. In this case, the IT departments tend to staffed by civilians what the appropriate skills working for the agency on contract. Also having been empowered by the agency in some way. Such as the deputation of computer hackers used to entrap online predators. The most high profile case of this, demonstrating the risks, pitfalls and potential good of the system in that of Edward Snowden. A civilian with top-shelf programming skills, Snowden 
was hired by some of America’s most secretive intelligence agencies, monitoring and maintaining their data filing systems. A position which gave him free password access second only to the agency director and the President. 

To the Roots

The term “going digital” can have some odd associations. Though it really only means content stored on a computerized device, there can be some peculiar assumptions made about what digital content is and should be. While there have been new genres and formats created or at least inspired by the new, digital infrastructure (blogs, vlogs, podcasting etc.), there is also a good deal of content in traditional styles that are available mostly, if not exclusively, online. In such cases, the web being used as a promotional tool as opposed to the platform itself. Much like when music videos were broadcast on traditional television to promote artists, while live performances and records were the primary commodity. 

An element that stands out in the music currently available online, is how staunchly traditional some of it is. At times to the point of the anachronistic. There are the intentionally jocular “Pirate Metal” stylings of Alestorm, which are basically high-powered sea-shanties, and the partially a Capella pieces of Ye Banished Privateers,  some of which are literal sea-shanties. 

On the darker end there is Arkona who blend 
Russian Folk music and Death Metal in a counter-intuitive combination on par with peanut butter and chocolate. 

Even deeper into the roots is Patty Gurdy. Primarily the hurdy-gurdyist and second vocalist for the 6-piece German Folk Metal band Storm Seeker (who also include a keyboardist and cellist), Ms. Gurdy also has a successful online presence on YouTube with 
a combination of instruction videos on the hurdy-gurdy as well as solo performances and collaborations with other YouTube musicians and members of her band, such as the acoustic version of the band’s song “The Longing” she did with the band's cellist.

There are also acts such as Faun. With a name referring to a mythical creature and using instruments that pre-date electricity by hundreds of years, all manner of descriptors
can, and have, been used for their music, some of them more accurate than others. Though the fact is, the style of music they tend to do is so old that it pre-date the concept of genre itself. There is also a strong element of pre-Christian European paganism in the band's themes, instrumentation and visuals which point to a firmly Medivalist orientation. 

So perhaps the web is not destroying traditional art forms, as many have claimed, so much as helping them spread and flourish. Switch they have always found a way to do. A large part of the reason they have lasted this long.    


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Grey Hats

Language is an interesting thing. The English language in particular. Of all the languages used by humans, English is, grammatically, 
the most complicated, many native speakers getting much of it wrong most of the time, and the most lexiconally vast. There are more individual words in English than in any other living language. Even so, there are still many occasions when even it falls short and a single term comes to describe many different things in the public imagination. One such term is the current use of the word “hacker.”

Applied to everyone from gamers using cheat-codes to those who perpetrate system breaches on banking systems, the terms “hack” and “hacker”, particularly as deployed by law enforcement officials, has become essentially meaningless. What is more, there are alternatives and qualifiers available for those concerned enough with accuracy to use them. The people using game cheat-codes are not really “hackers” at all. While this could be considered a hack in the expanded definition which includes any sort of short-cut. They are really just savvy gamers. The teams of programmers working to take down firewalls on Chinese networks to allow freer access to information there are better refereed to as “White Hat” Hackers or “Hacktivists”, a contraction of “hacker” and “activist”. This term has also been used variously for Wikileaks founder Julian Assange and Anonymous.  Those using their network-breaching skills to a criminal end, such as data destruction or theft, as happened with the Ashley Madison break-in, or even just the dissemination of official looking but misleading information are usually called “BlackHats”, “Darkside 
Hackers” or “Crackers”, a usage similar to safe-cracker in the olden days. To be called any of these three by someone in the Hacker community is usually taken, at the very least, as a personal slight. 

A bit more nebulous are those inhabiting the shades of grey between WhiteHats and Crackers. This group, while not always working for the greater good like WhiteHats/Hactivists, are also not fully nefarious like Crackers/BlackHats.  While they may use identical methods to the usually recognized groups, the purpose of the majority of hackers is simply to surf and connect. To go into a system to see if they can and snatch a random stream of data while they are there simply for bragging rights.
Despite being “criminals” in the eyes of the 
law and in many cases, such as that of Kevin 
Mitnick, serving up to nine years in prison, their actions are most often victimless. Unless you count a few bruised egos. Though it is rather telling that this is also the type most likely to go into cyber-security after being released from prison, keeping other far more dangerous hackers from doing what they would ordinarily do. 

It would therefore best to come up with a new term for the majority in the middle. Somewhere between the crusading Hactivist and shadowy cracker. In my humble opinion a term such as “Grey Hat” or “Seeker” would fit the bill nicely.  


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By the Numbers

It is in the nature of paradigms that they will shift. Often suddenly and of their own accord, giving little chance for preparation, seat-of-the-pants adjustment and adaptation often being the only recourse. The true trick is that what can seem like a sudden change usually happens over a matter of years, with various indicators along the way that tend to missed. Leading to the sensation of waking up in a different world with little notion as to how one got there. Something that has been referred to as the "Rip Van Winkle Effect."

One of the more recent developments with a trajectory along these lines is the rapid increase in the popularity and use of not only dating sites (which are basically Lonely Heart’s sections moved from the newspaper page to the computer screen), but dating apps. Both methods of keeping someone at a distance, perceived if not physical, during the early stages of the courtship process. It could even be argued, with a heavy heart, that the word "courtship", in the truest sense, has become yet another funny reminder of a bygone era, like "courtesy" and "discombobulate."

The stand-up comedian and all-around gadabout Russell Brand once quipped that he had "the art of seduction down to a gesture." At roughly this same time, the programmers and marketers behind Tinder, Grinder and to a lesser extent OkCupid, were getting dating down to a science. Literally reducing the process finding a potential mate to a mathematical equation. The problem with this notion, the flaw at the core of the hypothesis is that people are not math equations and have more complexities, eccentricities and shades on an individual level than can ever be captured, 
let alone calculated or understood by a data stream. No matter how many stats are collected or how powerful or exact the processor, there is still the matter of all those darn, irritating "emotions" to account for. Something humans have still barely learned to manage after thousands of years of practice.