What was missing in the general press coverage was an independent assessment of the actual comic. Few things annoy me more than discussions that begin with “I haven’t read the work in question, but…” So when the illustrator (Piper) offered me the chance to read “Wakan Unwanted”, I took him up on his offer. And frankly, I can’t see where the App Store bureaucrats are coming from.

“Wakan Unwanted” is the story of the wanderings of a black protagonist through a steampunkish, alternate-history American West. The tagline “It’s December 1870. The adventures of the last black man in America are about to begin” says it all, really. The story is brutal and the language crass, but no more so than your typical spaghetti western. The main character is portrayed in a heroic light. While some might take offense at the back story of an African-American genocide, there are enough decent white people to go around.

As far as I can tell, the only thing that could have triggered the accusation of racism is the frequent use of the “n” word. If this is the case, the reasoning is disingenious indeed. While the word is deeply offensive when used in a current setting, there is no denying that it is part of our history and literature. It is certainly defensible to use the word in a graphic novel set in the American West in 1870s, even more so when the general tone of the work is evidently non-racist.

The imagery in Wakan Unwanted is not racist by any reasonable standard.

In Norway, accusations of racism are no small matter. Public statements that denigrate people on the basis of skin colour can potentially land you in jail for three years. The writer and illustrator are not comfortable with being labeled racists (and by extension criminals) by a global corporation, and in the Anakata Comics blog Lars writes:

We strongly believe that the folks over at Apple are misreading Wakan Unwanted. We have sent them some more background materials as well as an outline of where the story is going. Hopefully, this will clear things up.We strongly believe that the folks over at Apple are misreading Wakan Unwanted. We have sent them some more background materials as well as an outline of where the story is going. Hopefully, this will clear things up.

Let’s hope it will. But to me, this case is yet another reminder of the fix Apple has gotten itself into by including the infamous clause 3.3.12 in its iPhone SDK Agreement. By granting itself über-editorial power, Apple is condemned to repeat mistakes like this in its quest to rid the App Store of  ”obscene, pornographic, offensive or defamatory content or materials of any kind”.

The loss to the content producers affected is obvious. But ultimately, Apple also stands to lose. If not money, then credibility and reputation in its core “creative classes” market. Say what you will about censorship, but hip or cool it is not.

Cats for Barack Obama ’08

Or how about this!

The aim of this book aims to give the reader a deep and wide overview of blogging as a genre, its history and relation to other genres and media, both on- and offline. Walker starts by defining the term, and then explains in detail how and why blogs such as Dooce.com and Kottke.org are typical examples of the genre. She puts the blog genre in its proper historical perspective, and goes on to show the similiarities and distinctions between blogs and other social networks.

Citizen journalism, as represented by Salam Pax and students who blogged their reactions to the Virginia Tech massacre, is well covered, as is commercial blogging in its various shapes and forms. There is also a very interesting (especially to someone with a background in the natural sciences) chapter on the narrative aspect of blogging, with subchapters on blogging a self-exploration and the distinction between fact and fiction.

The text is written in a light and engaging manner, with many fascinating tidbits of information. I did not know, for instance, that the playwright Bertolt Brecht described a vision of radio very similar to podcasting in 1932. And the concept of the The Gutenberg Parenthesis was a real eye-opener. The idea is that blogs and other social media are taking us back to the state that existed before the dominance of printed text, when teaching and entertainment was mainly oral and therefore dialogic.

All in all, Walker Rettberg covers an impressive amount of territory in a mere 176 pages. If there is one aspect of blogging I miss, it would be the connection between newspapers and blogs we find in Scandinavia. Here, a large segment of the blogging community uses the services provided by Verdens Gang, Norway’s largest newspaper and most popular website, at vgb.no. My impression is that this close relationship does influence the choice of subjects, as well as the comment and linking practices of many of the bloggers there.

Twingly, a commercial trackback service used by an increasing number of online newspapers, is part and parcel of the same phenomenon. The trackback pings are integrated with the newspaper story, allowing the blogger to give her or his perspective. When pinging newspapers with Twingly, I’ve also found that journalists use the service to engage in dialogue by commenting in my blog. Although local to Scandinavia, newspaper blogs and Twingly are interesting examples of mainstream media trying to connect with the blogging community.

This is only a minor complaint, however. “Blogging” puts a genre that is so often ignored or ridiculed as “pajama media”, on a firm academic footing without inundating the reader with academic terminology. I warmly recommend it to anyone affected by the explosive growth of web-based media, including parents, journalists and – perhaps most importantly – teachers. From now on, this book should be on the reading list of every teacher’s training academy.

But recently I stumbled upon a simple solution that so far has worked with every projector and external screen I’ve connected to the VGA port. Here it is, in three steps:

1. If it isn’t already on, boot up you computer and log in.
2. Connect the cable to the projector/external screen. That’s right: wait until you are logged in, do not connect the cable before you boot up.
3. Restart X server, and log in again. To restart X in Ubuntu, just press Ctrl-Alt-Backspace.

By restarting X you will shut down Firefox, Openoffice and other applications that depend on the graphical subsystem. But most of Linux will be untouched, which means that the process should just take a few seconds. Anyway, in my experience it is far more predictable than running the projector application that launches in Windows XP when you press Fn-F5, and faster than using the NVidia application.

There might be a zeroth step here: My T61 is normally connected to an external 1680×1050 monitor, via the VGA port on a docking station. This meant that I initially had to use the NVidia X server Preferences application (normally found in System/Administration/NVidia X Server Settings or started by typing sudo nvidia-settings in a terminal window) to create a dual screen setup.

If you run this while an external monitor or projector is connected, you will see it listed along with the laptop screen when you press X Server Display Configuration. In the menu under the screen layout window, press “Configure” and choose “Separate X screen”, set the resolution to Auto and save the X Configuration file. With this setup as you standard xorg.conf file, the NVidia card seems to detect any new screens and change the resolution accordingly when you restart X.

There doesn’t seem to be a fix in the pipeline, and as a result I installed Gnome-Do instead. It seems just as snappy as Launchy, and although I haven’t been able to find a configuration menu the default installation runs all applications and opens most directories as it should. I qualify my statement, as there seems to be a problem with Gnome’s standard directories. Rather than opening /home/eirik/Documents, say, Gnome-Do opens /home/eirik instead. By default in version 0.4.* directories are opened with the “Reveal” option, and you have to tab to the Options window and type Open to get Gnome-do to truly open the directory. I upgraded to the latest version, and now directories are opened directly by default.

Ubuntu Cola is made with Fairtrade sugar (the kinder, gentler way to obesity), and AFAIK not available in Norway as yet (though Wikipedia says otherwise). Alas, as a can of cola is an essential accessory to any Linux install… ;-)

The original series documenting Linus’ hitherto undocumented veganism is flickred, of course…