Elijah Meeks's Blog, page 9

Book Review: Lucifer and Lacious

Lucifer and Lacious

The protagonist of Lucifer and Lacious, a novel by Sean Vincent Lehosit, finds himself wrongfully deposited in Hell, due to some rather convoluted scheming. While it’s always difficult to trod on fictional ground broken by Dante, it’s unavoidable to compare any story about a trip through Hell to Inferno, and Lucifer and Lacious doesn’t hold up. Hell is rather pedantic, full of dismembered corpses, mass-murderers, Monster Manual demons and uncreative torture. It’s the superf

Hajra Meeks’ Art Exhibit during Michelle Obama’s Visit

This Mughal-inspired, mixed media piece is one of the works to be displayed during Michelle's visit.

The university library has confirmed that Hajra will get a wall to exhibit her art during the First Lady’s visit to UC Merced.  It’ll be located on the third floor of Kolligian library and the exhibit will remain up throughout the summer.  While Hajra’s work includes many secular pieces, notably those used in the posters for Son of the Great River, she also produces beautiful calligraphy and art i

World Book, the Jaguar E-Type and the Myth of the Expert

As more and more amateurs continue to produce knowledge, software and books with little or no help from experts, I think it’s time to clear the mist a little and remember what the world was producing when only experts were in charge.  Too often critiques, like those of Andrew Keen, seem to imply that everything being produced by the infinite number of monkeys and their infinite copies of WordPress is far inferior to that of some mythical, Golden Age of Software, Books and All Products in General

Son of the Great River Posters - Rheem and Naganawae

Princess Naganawae from Son of the Great River

Rheem from Son of the Great River

Both of these posters are available through the Seven Lions Store, and complementary posters are available for bookstores carrying Son of the Great River.

Just How Important was that Bill Gates Guy, Anyway?

Following up on Anthony DiPierro’s comments on my previous post, I realized that our disagreement in whether or not criticisms of crowdsourcing could be considered criticisms of open source was based on a definition.  Given my own statements equating Wikipedia with open source, it seems we have a difference in distinguishing the definition of these diverse projects (Wow, that was extremely alliterative, though unintentionally so).  I tend to lump them together, following Benkler’s definition of

Are We Really Slouching into a Mediocre Babylon?

Isn’t the Web wonderful?  Students aren’t writing their own essays anymore (In fact, they’re looking for contract essay writers for the entire course of their college career).  Anthony DiPierro over at akahele makes the case that the optimism of participants in commons-based models (Open Source and Wikipedia) ignores the fact that “Almost all if not all of the great software projects, even in the open source world, were created by very small numbers of individuals.” Students would rather tweet o

The Growth of Abstract Animation on the Web

In the same way that I tried to relate a few details about changes in early Chinese society using animation, there’s now a much more competently produced abstract animated retelling of Little Red Riding Hood by Tomas Nilsson.  This goes along with explaining how nuclear reactors work and how modern society grows ever more rote and dreary.  I feel the need to repost the animation tetrad before trying to suss out where this is all going.

You’ll notice in Little Red Riding Hood that the iconography

Book Review - Sons of Avalon

I’m happy to announce that Seven Lions will begin posting reviews of small publisher and print-on-demand books (Fiction and non-fiction).  At some point, I’ll comment on this whole setup, typical of Web 2.0, where someone who isn’t a “professional” book reviewer gets to take apart the work of writers and get inordinate amounts of attention without the necessary credentials to do so.  But, without further ado, I’ll begin the first review, a piece of historical fiction titled Sons of Avalon: Merli

Son of the Great River Posters

We’re just putting the finishing touches on the first series of posters for Son of the Great River.  These glossy posters are based on original watercolors like the one above (Based on the pen-and-ink illustration of Rheem from the book) and are designed for display in bookstores carrying Son of the Great River.  If you’re a fan of the book and would like a poster, drop me a line and I’ll get one out to you.

What if you throw a Web 2.0 party and nobody comes?

The Giving Tree is an artifact of an era that later generations will contemplate with pity and horror. An era when many parents turned their children over to subminimum-wage workers by day, and told them stories like The Giving Tree during “quality time” at night. An era when hordes of American Boys and Girls pursued infantile fantasies and desires until they could eat, drink, and make merry no more. An era when many of us behaved like Tree-tolerant, indulgent, but not loving enough to call good