Continuing my amateur ruminations on contemporary art: One of the things that’s fun about art is going on a journey from “OK . . .” to “aha!” from seeing something and not really understanding or even registering it, to both grasping an essential point about the work (even if it’s essential only for you) and seeing and appreciating the further associations and cross-connections it raises. It’s especially fun if you can get to that point on your own, without having to read the wall text or a critic’s article. ...

Now that I’m interested in art again, a few background comments might be in order, especially since my main interest is in contemporary art, a field both inscrutable and risible in the minds of many. In the work-related discussion I alluded to in a previous post, a colleague brought up Damien Hirst’s infamous shark in a tank; he seemed incredulous at this being considered art, but at the same time happened to remember the exact name of the work (something I myself had forgotten). This seems to encapsulate the paradox of contemporary art: it’s dismissed as silly and inconsequential, but at the same time has wormed its way into public consciousness. ...

As a congenital generalist I maintain ongoing relatively superficial interests in a lot of different things. However every once in a while an interest will take me over and lead me to explore it obsessively for a time. Several years ago I had that experience with art, especially contemporary art. (I have a bias towards what’s going on currently in a field; thus my current interest in “classical” music is focused on what’s being composed here and now, and extends back only to the dawn of minimalism.) ...

This is a very rare week (the first one in years) in which I’ve been left at home to take care of the pets and work past my usual stopping time. Tonight I decided to take a break and check out Pure Wine Café, a new wine bar in downtown Ellicott City. I’d noticed it some time ago while driving and walking down Main Street, had checked it out on the web, and thought it might be a nice place to relax after work. I was not disappointed. ...

In the few remaining minutes before Firefox 3.5 storms its way around the world, I wanted to highlight two Firefox-related accessibility projects that are just getting under way, courtesy of special funding from the Mozilla Corporation. Both projects address key goals in the proposed Mozilla accessibility strategy. The first is a project by the Paciello Group to continue work they’ve previously been doing under Mozilla Foundation funding to make the Firebug developer tool more accessible, with a particular focus on the Firebug releases intended for use with Firefox 3.5. This work is complementary with related Firebug work by the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (funded by the Mozilla Foundation), with the overall goal being to integrate accessibility for web applications into the standard tools used by web developers (i.e., Firebug), as opposed to having accessibility testing confined to special accessibility-focused tools used by only a small subset of developers. ...

Given the extent to which Michael Jackson the person was crushed beneath the weight of Michael Jackson the commercial phenomenon, it’s sadly appropriate that his death should allow Sony Music Entertainment and eMusic to conduct a natural experiment in maximizing profits through price discrimination. Jackson’s death has rekindled interest in his music, to the point where Michael Jackson albums now dominate the charts at the iTunes Store and Amazon. As far as I can tell all the Michael Jackson digital releases on the iTunes Store are being sold at full-price; the same is true for Michael Jackson releases in MP3 format at Amazon. Individual Michael Jackson tracks range from $0.99 to $1.29 on both services. ...

My apologies for not passing this on earlier: Universidad Rey Juan Carlos in Madrid, Spain, is organizing a three-month course on Mozilla technologies in cooperation with the Mozilla Foundation and Mozilla Europe. The course is almost completely on-line, but it includes a one-week face-to-face “sprint” session in Madrid in July; students are welcome to apply for financial help with travel costs for the Madrid portion of the course. The course is open to international students and will be taught in English. You can find further information—including a course outline, important dates, FAQ, and a forum—at mozilla.libresoft.es. The deadline for applications has been extended to June 20, so get your applications in soon!

For today’s instance of our weekly Mozilla Education call at 11 am EDT / 8 am PDT / 1500 UTC we’ll be talking about a proposed multi-disciplinary multi-school “meta-project” to move the Processing programming language to the open web. (Processing is currently Java-based, though there is a JavaScript port in progress). I’ll also be glad to answer any questions people might have about the SoftHum workshop that I attended last week and blogged about.

I was at Drexel University in Philadelphia last Thursday and Friday participating in the SoftHum Workshop on Involving Students in Humanitarian Free and Open Source Software Projects (to use its official name). I was there representing Mozilla, and in particular to talk about our Mozilla Education initiative; I was one of the folks invited to provide the open source project perspective, along with Greg Dekoenigsberg of Red Hat and the Fedora Project and Darius Jazayeri of the OpenMRS project. ...

Mary Colvig mentioned this on the Monday Mozilla call, and I wanted to follow up with more information. Briefly, the Mozilla Foundation is one of the sponsors of the Personal Democracy Forum conference to be held June 29-30 in New York City. To quote from the conference blurb: More than 1,000 top opinion makers, political practitioners, technologists and journalists will come together to network, exchange ideas, and explore how technology and the Internet are changing politics, democracy, and society. ...