A forthcoming issue:

• Diads – ROCK ISLAND/ Minneapolis, Illinois – Electronica / Industrial
  (tags: music)
• Mythaxis
  New sf/f online magazine, all new authors. Haven’t read it yet.
  (tags: web sf)
• HUMlab
  A collection of online video streams on research and practice in digital humanities: Includes robot ethics, game studies, digital culture studies, digital literature, digital art, design, blogging, posthumanism
  (tags: sci video web)

Tony Blair is to teach students at Yale University in the US when he leads a seminar on faith and globalisation.

BBC NEWS | Politics | Blair to teach in the US on faith

Probably won’t be able to make it to this, but wanted to flag it anyway.

Details here.

As part of the ATMOSPHEREs 2 festival at the Museum of Garden History in London, the "Hauntology Now!" symposium takes place on May 12:

This May 12 event will be the first to deal with the relation between sound and hauntology, and will focus in particular on the role of space in generating hauntological effects. Why do certain places retain the traces of past sonic events? Why is so much hauntological music tied up with particular spaces? What has the disappearance of the concept of public space to do with hauntology?

Mamoru Oshii’s new film:

Is now available for your viewing pleasure.

• Amanda’s Autopsies – Steampunk Taxidermy
  as mentioned on warrenelliscom a few weeks ago, now has its own website
  (tags: steampunk art)

5000! is artist Spencer Cross, exhibiting at the Greasers, Ghouls & Gals! show at Meltdown Comics in LA on Saturday:

Der Bekannte Post-Industrielle Trompeter

Kevin Leeser, quoted by Siege in an update:

The recovery from Hurricane Katrina is far from the front pages these days. There were still 30,000 families (over 110,000 American individuals) still living in FEMA trailers earlier this month (feb 2008), when the "news" of deadly levels of formaldehyde in the trailers was finally reported.

The diary of a hauntological art installation:

The rumblings of Lower Bay Station are used in an audio installation which concentrates on sounds that are below the threshold of human hearing. These tactile sounds are largely felt rather than heard, and are associated with paranormal activity and ghost sightings.

Remember this? Simon Crubellier has tracked down the mystery URL that was torn off the flyer:

www.satanoperator.com

Simon provides context:

Seems to be something to do with one of the many sects that fragmented off when the UK arm of the Church of Satan imploded, with some sort of extremely far-out Mad Liberation stuff thrown in. Features the best disclaimer ever: “Throughout the history of The Guerilla Press we have, at frequent points during our history, supported arson as a justified political activity. We would at this juncture, however, like to point out that this is seriously no longer the case.”

Scientists at a Japanese university said Thursday they believed another planet up to two-thirds the size of the Earth was orbiting in the far reaches of the solar system. The researchers at Kobe University in western Japan said calculations using computer simulations led them to conclude it was only a matter of time before the mysterious "Planet X" was found. "Because of the very cold temperature, its surface would be covered with ice, icy ammonia and methane," Kobe University professor Tadashi Mukai, the lead researcher, told AFP.

Japanese scientists eye new planet

And now I’m attempting to test the desktop blogging system.

Flute player Paul Horn recorded this album in three rooms of the Great Pyramid of Gizeh (Cheops). Sides one and two were recorded in the King’s Chamber and side three was recorded in the Queen’s Chamber. Side four was actually recorded in the Burial Chamber of another pyramid (Kephren). Horn was attempting to obtain a spiritual experience from playing in the pyramids as well as record his playing including the unique echoes, in the pyramids’ rooms, generated by his playing.

A Closet of Curiosities: Inside the Great Pyramid

I’ve been getting a lot of requests lately, mostly through social networks, from people asking how they can send me stuff — either physical objects, or wanting to point me to their mp3s or comics or photographs or special projects etc.

If you (for god knows what reason) wanted to send me something physical, the best solution right now would probably be to send to my literary agency in New York City.

Warren Ellis
c/o Lydia Wills
360 Park Avenue South
16th floor
New York
New York 10010

I don’t have a solution for people living closer to me as yet. See, if you send it to Lydia, she’ll get Jason Yarn to check it for bombs or poison first.

For people wanting to send me to their sites, wanting to email stuff or send me tips or whatever, I’ve set up a Gmail account that I’ll check once or twice a day: degaussing [-at-] googlemail com. This isn’t, I stress, my main email account, and it’s not for asking me when some comic’s coming out.

Which is what I’m currently calling the ThinkPad X61 that Avatar sent me. It is small and perfectly formed. It’s been years since I’ve used a trackstud, and the muscle-memory’s gone, so I’ve plugged in an external mouse. My ancient Alcatel Speedtouch DSL modem is dealing less well: it just refuses to play with the ThinkPad. Which means either the modem’s fried, or there’s a setting on the ThinkPad that’s interfering with it, or the DSL filter’s blown, or… god knows. Spent two hours on the phone with my ISP’s tech support and got nowhere. So for the moment I have no DSL. It just goes on and on, doesn’t it?

So what I did was get a pay-as-you-go mobile-broadband modem from 3 (because T-Mobile wouldn’t answer their phone, the dickslaps). My daughter has the T-Mobile contract model, which is terrific. The 3 PAYG model? Not so much, actually. But it’s getting me online, if only at 3G/HSDPA speeds. It’ll do — I just don’t have the time to get a new modem, an external DVD/CD drive etc etc.

Oh, and for those following the comedy, the main computer is degenerating day by day, and is on life support at this point.

But I wanted to just get it down on here that this little computer — and it is tiny and light, maybe three pounds — is very good. The only thing on it that is less than terrific, in fact, is the speaker system. Which is awful. But that’s what earphones were invented for.

And now my desktop blogging system has downloaded and I will install it.

(EDIT: This was a test of a new blogging client. Still an interesting site, though. Carry on.)

Now we get word of more confusion in the Maine delegation. Lists of Maine’s DNC members from last year have Jennifer DeChant as a DNC member. However, lists from earlier this year showed she was replaced by Rita Moran. But the most recent DNC lists show DeChant back as a DNC member. What’s going on?
2008 Democratic Convention Watch