Look up alcove in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

Drawing of an alcove.

Alcove in sandstone, near Moab, Utah.

Alcove ( /ælˈkoʊv/ or /ˈælkoʊv/; through the Spanish, alcoba, from the Arabic, al-, the, and qubbah(القبة), a vault) is an architectural term for a recess in a room, usually screened off by pillars, balustrades or drapery.

In geography and geology, the term Alcove is used for a wind-eroded depression in the side of a cliff of a homogenous rock type, famous from sandstones of the Colorado Plateau like the Navajo Sandstone.^[1]

References[link]

•  This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. 

This article related to a type of room in a building is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

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Blut Aus Nord (French pronunciation: [bluːt.o.nɔʁ], German pronunciation: [ˈbluːt aʊs ˈnɔʁt]) is a black metal band from Mondeville, Calvados, France, which has incorporated avant-garde elements in its music.

Biography[link]

Vindsval began a solo project, under the name "Vlad", in 1994. He released two demos before changing the project's name to Blut aus Nord, before the release of Ultima Thulée in 1995. The next three albums were recorded with the aid of session musicians. It is only recently that the group has had any permanent members apart from Vindsval.

The project's most critically acclaimed release is The Work Which Transforms God,^[2] a concept album which, in spite of being mostly instrumental with none of the lyrics made public, is meant to challenge the listener's prejudices and preconceptions about reality and various metaphysical subjects.^[3] The album was named by Terrorizer Magazine as one of its top 10 albums of 2003. So far, Vindsval has only allowed the lyrics from one of Blut aus Nord's full-length releases, Memoria Vetusta I, to be made public. According to journalist Avi Pitchon, "Blut Aus Nord are responsible, perhaps more so than any band, for the most recent evolution within black metal. 2003's 'The Work Which Transforms God' introduced us to the warped, collapsing mutation of 'black hole metal'; nowadays also called shoegazing BM."^[3]

Vindsval is head of the underground French record label Appease Me..., which is home to several extreme metal acts, in addition to Blut aus Nord.

On their followup release, 2006's MoRT, Blut aus Nord moved even further away from traditional black metal. The sound on MoRT is closer to avant-garde metal, comprising a mixture of dark and surreal noises and sounds that create a disturbing and bleak atmosphere.

Blut aus Nord's 2007 album Odinist: The Destruction of Reason by Illumination (the subtitle being a quote from Aleister Crowley^[4]), was leaked to the Internet on September 10, 2007. While the album's superficial sound is similar to that of MoRT, the album demonstrates a return to more traditional black metal songwriting and structure.

The sequel to Memoria Vetusta I, subtitled Dialogue with the Stars, was released in February 2009. In June 2010 they released a LP entitled "What Once Was...Liber I" on Debemur Morti Productions. They are currently scheduled to re-release The Mystical Beast of Rebellion in early 2011 thru Debemur Morti with an additional CD of newly recorded material meant to act as a complimentary work to the original.

The name "Blut aus Nord" translates from German as "Blood from the North", though the non-standard grammar suggests nautical jargon (a more standard phrasing would be "Blut aus (dem) Norden" or "Blut von Nord(en)," though cardinal directions are seldom used in spoken German to begin with).

Musical style and conceptual elements[link]

Blut Aus Nord's work has been described as the "sonic equivalent to Thorns injecting Streetcleaner-era Godflesh with an evil unpredictability".^[2] Vindsval, the vocalist and guitarist, made the following statement:

BAN have dissociated themselves from nationalism, instead recognizing a kinship with "environmentalist black metal" groups such as Wolves in the Throne Room.^[3]

Current line-up[link]

• Vindsval - vocals, guitar (Also in: Children of Maani, The Eye)
• W.D. Feld - drums, electronics, keyboards
• GhÖst - bass guitar

Session musicians[link]

• Ogat - session bass on Ultima Thulee
• Ira Aeterna - session bass on Fathers of the Icy Age
• Taysiah - session vocals on The Work Which Transforms God
• Nahaim - session guitar on The Work Which Transforms God

Discography[link]

Studio albums[link]

• Ultima Thulée (1995)
• Memoria Vetusta I – Fathers of the Icy Age (1996)
• The Mystical Beast of Rebellion (2001)
• The Work Which Transforms God (2003)
• MoRT (23 October 2006)
• Odinist: The Destruction of Reason by Illumination (2007)
• Memoria Vetusta II – Dialogue with the Stars (2009)
• 777 – Sect(s) (28 April 2011)
• 777 – The Desanctification (11 November 2011)^[5]
• 777 - Cosmosophy (September 2012) (expected)

EPs[link]

• Thematic Emanation of Archetypal Multiplicity (14 February 2005)
• What Once Was... Liber I (2010)

Split releases[link]

• Decorporation 10 (2004) – split with Reverence
• Dissociated Human Junction (2007) – split with Bloodoline, Reverence, and Karras.

External links[link]

• Official Website

References[link]

Arianna Huffington
Huffington at the 2012 Time 100 gala
Born	Arianna Stasinopoúlou (1950-07-15) July 15, 1950 (age 61) Athens, Greece
Occupation	Journalist, Tycoon
Nationality	Greek American
Alma mater	Cambridge University
Genres	Non-fiction, news
Subjects	Politics, spirituality, environment, liberalism
Spouse(s)	Michael Huffington (1986–1997)
www.huffingtonpost.com

Arianna Huffington (formerly Stassinopoulos; born Greek: Αριάννα Στασινοπούλου, July 15, 1950) is a Greek-born American author and syndicated columnist. She is best known for her liberal news website The Huffington Post. A popular conservative commentator in the mid-1990s, she adopted liberal political beliefs in the late 1990s.^[1] She is the ex-wife of former Republican congressman Michael Huffington.

In 2003, she ran as an independent candidate for Governor in the California recall election.^[2]

In 2009, Huffington was named as number 12 in Forbes' first-ever list of the Most Influential Women In Media.^[3] She has also moved up to number 42 in The Guardian's Top 100 in Media List.^[4]

In 2011, AOL acquired The Huffington Post for US$315 million and made Huffington president and editor in chief of The Huffington Post Media Group, which included The Huffington Post and then-existing AOL properties such as Engadget, AOL Music, Patch Media, and StyleList.^[5]

Early life[link]

Huffington was born Arianna Stasinopoúlou in Athens, Greece, the daughter of Konstantinos (a journalist and management consultant) and Elli (née Georgiadi) Stasinopoulos, and is the sister of Agapi (an author, speaker and performer).^{[citation needed]} She moved to England at the age of 16, and studied economics at Girton College, Cambridge, where she was President of the Cambridge Union.^[6]

In 1971, she appeared in an edition of Face the Music along with Bernard Levin. He was 42 ; she was 21. A relationship developed, of which she wrote, after his death: "He wasn't just the big love of my life, he was a mentor as a writer and a role model as a thinker."^[7]. Huffington began writing books in the 1970s, with editorial help from Levin. For the BBC, the two traveled to music festivals around the world. They spent summers touring three-star restaurants in France. At the age of 30, she remained deeply in love with him but longed to have children; Levin never wanted to marry or have children. Huffington concluded that she must break away, and moved to New York in 1980.^[7]

Career[link]

In the late 1980s, Huffington wrote several articles for National Review. In 1981, she wrote a biography of Maria Callas, Maria Callas – The Woman Behind the Legend, and in 1989, a biography of Pablo Picasso, Picasso: Creator and Destroyer.^[8]

Huffington rose to national prominence during her husband's unsuccessful Senate bid in 1994. She became known as a reliable supporter of conservative causes such as Newt Gingrich's "Republican Revolution" and Bob Dole's 1996 candidacy for president. She teamed up with liberal comedian Al Franken as the conservative half of "Strange Bedfellows"^[9] during Comedy Central's coverage of the 1996 U.S. presidential election. For her work, she and the writing team of Politically Incorrect with Bill Maher were nominated for an Emmy for Outstanding Writing for a Variety or Music Program.^{[citation needed]} She has also made a few forays into acting with roles on shows such as Roseanne, The L Word, How I Met Your Mother, Help Me Help You, and the film EdTV.^[10]

Huffington's politics began to shift back^{[clarification needed]} toward the left in the late 1990s. In 2000, she instigated the 'Shadow Conventions', which appeared at the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia and the Democratic National Convention in Los Angeles at Patriotic Hall.^[11]

Campaigning for Governor of California, 2003

Huffington heads The Detroit Project, a public interest group lobbying automakers to start producing cars running on alternative fuels. The project's 2003 TV ads, which equated driving sport utility vehicles to funding terrorism, proved to be particularly controversial, with some stations refusing to run them.^[12]

In a 2004 appearance on The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, she announced her endorsement of John Kerry by saying, "When your house is burning down, you don't worry about the remodeling."^[13] Huffington was a panel speaker during the 2005 California Democratic Party State Convention, held in Los Angeles. She also spoke at the 2004 College Democrats of America Convention in Boston, which was held in conjunction with the 2004 Democratic National Convention. Huffington is also a regular panelist on the nationally syndicated weekend radio program, Both Sides Now with Huffington & Matalin,^[14] hosted by Mark Green.

California recall election participation[link]

Huffington was an independent candidate to recall California governor Gray Davis in the 2003 recall election. She described her candidacy against front runner Arnold Schwarzenegger as "the hybrid versus the Hummer," making reference to her ownership of a hybrid vehicle, the Toyota Prius, and Schwarzenegger's Hummer. The two would proceed to have a high-profile clash during the election's debate, during which both candidates were rebuked for making personal attacks.^{[citation needed]}

Despite briefly retaining former U.S. Senator Dean Barkley as a campaign advisor and advertising executive Bill Hillsman as her media director, she dropped out of the race on September 30, 2003. Others attributed her exit to her inability to garner support for her candidacy, noting that polls showed that only about two percent of likely California voters planned to vote for her at the time of her withdrawal.^[15] Though she failed to stop the recall, Huffington's name remained on the ballot and she placed 5th, capturing 0.55% of the vote.

Media presence[link]

In the 1970s, on the strength of her prominence in the Cambridge Union, Arianna Stassinopoulos was a frequent panelist on the weekly BBC Radio 4 political discussion programme, Any Questions?, and the BBC television panel games Call My Bluff and Face the Music.^{[citation needed]} She was the first female host of the BBC's late night chat show Saturday Night at The Mill, broadcast live from the foyer of the BBC's Pebble Mill Studios in Birmingham.^{[citation needed]} She was dropped from the show after just a few weeks in the role, and was replaced by Jenny Hanley.^{[citation needed]}

Huffington at the 2011 Tribeca Film Festival

Huffington's book The Fourth Instinct is based on the idea that all humans have an inherent spiritual yearning.^[16]

Huffington is the co-host of the weekly, nationally syndicated, public radio program Both Sides Now, along with Mary Matalin, former top aide to the Bush/Cheney White House. Every week on Both Sides Now, Huffington and Matalin discuss the nation's relevant political issues, offering both sides of every issue to the listeners. Both Sides Now is hosted by former Air Radio America President and HuffPost blogger Mark J. Green.^[14]

Huffington also has an Internet presence with her website The Huffington Post, which features blogs and commentary from her and from a number of prominent liberal journalists, public officials, and celebrities.

Prior to The Huffington Post, Huffington hosted a website called Ariannaonline.com. Her first foray into the Internet was a website called Resignation.com, which called for the resignation of President Bill Clinton and was a rallying place for conservatives opposing Clinton.^[17]

In November 2008, Huffington joined the cast of Seth MacFarlane's animated series, The Cleveland Show, where she lends her voice to the wife of Tim the Bear, also named Arianna.^[18]

On November 17, 2008, Huffington substituted for Rachel Maddow on MSNBC's The Rachel Maddow Show. The online website TV Newser has put forward the idea that she is in the running for a more permanent role as commentator or anchor at MSNBC.^[19]

Huffington was spoofed by actress Michaela Watkins on the November 22, 2008, episode of Saturday Night Live.^[20]

Huffington was also spoofed on the first season of Tracey Ullman's State of the Union in 2008.^{[citation needed]}

Huffington appeared as herself in the May 10, 2010, episode of the CBS sitcom How I Met Your Mother.^[21]

Huffington participated in the 24th annual "Distinguished Speaker Series" at the University at Buffalo, NY., on September 16, 2010. She headlined a debate against radio co-host Mary Matalin on current world events, political issues, and the local Buffalo economy. The University at Buffalo "Distinguished Speaker Series" has featured a multitude of world-renowned politicians and celebrities such as; Tony Blair, Bill Nye, Jon Stewart, and the Dalai Lama.^{[citation needed]}

Huffington offered to provide as many buses as necessary to transport those who want to go to Jon Stewart's Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear on October 30, 2010, from the Huffington Post Headquarters in New York City.^[22] Ultimately, she paid for 150 buses to ferry almost 10,000 people from Citi Field in Queens to RFK Stadium in DC. The only self-promotion on her part was 'Huffington Post' written on the bracelets needed to get on the bus.

Huffington appeared as herself in the Family Guy episode "Brian Writes a Bestseller" on November 21, 2010,^[23] taking part in a discussion on a mock version of Real Time with Bill Maher about the quality of a book Brian Griffin authored in this episode.

Plagiarism claims[link]

Huffington was accused of plagiarism for copying material for her book Maria Callas (1981); the claims were settled out of court in 1981, with Callas' biographer Gerald Fitzgerald being paid "in the low five figures."^[24][25][26]

Lydia Gasman, an art history professor at the University of Virginia, claimed that Huffington’s 1988 biography of Pablo Picasso, Picasso: Creator and Destroyer, included themes similar to those in her unpublished four-volume Ph.D. thesis. "What she did was steal twenty years of my work," Gasman told Maureen Orth in 1994. Gasman did not file suit.^[27]

Maureen Orth also reported that Huffington "borrowed heavily for her 1993 book, The Gods of Greece."^[24]

Personal life[link]

Huffington met her future husband Michael Huffington in 1985. They were married a year later. They later established residency in Santa Barbara, California, in order for him to run in 1992 as a Republican for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, which he won by a significant margin. Arianna campaigned for her husband, courting religious conservatives, arguing for smaller government and a reduction in welfare. In 1994, he narrowly lost the race for the U.S. Senate seat to California to incumbent Dianne Feinstein.^[28] The couple divorced in 1997.^[29] They have two daughters – Christina Sophia Huffington and Isabella Diana Huffington.^{[citation needed]} She became a naturalized American citizen in 1990.^[30] In 1998 Michael Huffington disclosed that he was bisexual.^[31]

Religion[link]

Huffington was a member of the Rajneesh movement in the early 80s along with her then-partner Bernard Levin.^[32] Later they both joined the MSIA movement.^[32]

Bibliography[link]

• The Female Woman (1973) ISBN 0-7067-0098-8
• After Reason (1978) ISBN 0-8128-2465-2
• Maria Callas: The Woman Behind the Legend (1981; 1993) ISBN 0-8154-1228-2
• The Gods of Greece (1993) ISBN 0-87113-554-X
• The Fourth Instinct (1994) ISBN 0-7432-6163-1
• Picasso: Creator and Destroyer (1996) ISBN 0-671-45446-3
• Greetings from the Lincoln Bedroom (1998) ISBN 0-517-39699-8
• How to Overthrow the Government (2000) ISBN 0-06-098831-2
• Pigs at the Trough (2003) ISBN 1-4000-4771-4
• Fanatics & Fools (2004) ISBN 1-4013-5213-8
• On Becoming Fearless...In Love, Work, and Life (2007) ISBN 0-316-16682-0
• Right is Wrong: How the Lunatic Fringe Hijacked America, Shredded the Constitution, and Made Us All Less Safe (2008) ISBN 978-0-307-26966-9
• Third World America: How Our Politicians Are Abandoning the Middle Class and Betraying the American Dream (2010) ISBN 0-307-71982-0

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Arianna Huffington

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Arianna Huffington

• Column archive at The Huffington Post
• Column archive at AlterNet
• Appearances on C-SPAN
• Arianna Huffington on Charlie Rose
• Arianna Huffington at the Internet Movie Database
• Arianna Huffington collected news and commentary at The Guardian
• Arianna Huffington collected news and commentary at The New York Times
• Works by or about Arianna Huffington in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Campaign contributions made by Arianna Huffington

Interviews and statements[link]

• Booknotes interview with Huffington on How to Overthrow the Government, February 13, 2000.
• YouTube: "Arianna Huffington video interview on The Alcove with Mark Molaro, 2008"
• Video interview/discussion with Huffington and Robert Wright on Bloggingheads.tv
• "7 Days in America" podcast
• Arianna Huffington interview^{[dead link]} on the Tavis Smiley show. Watch her interview online. October 2006
• Video of Arianna Huffington on The Hour
• Arianna Huffington on her New Book Third World America – eo interview by Democracy Now!, September 10, 2010
• Arianna Huffington interviewed by Sophie Elmhirst on New Statesman, December 2010

Articles[link]

• McLellan, Diana. Arianna Huffington, Washingtonian, May 1, 1994.
• Los Angeles Shadow Convention; Aug 13–17, 2000
• Arianna Huffington profile at the Left, Right and Center website
• Hurricane Arianna, article by Paul Harris, The Observer, December 10, 2006
• This is the Future of the News: The Arianna Huffington Interview by David Weinberger for Wired, May 15, 2007
• The Times: Arianna Huffington: The Super Blogger

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Mark D. Pesce
Mark Pesce at LCA2011 in Brisbane, Australia
Born	(1962-12-08) December 8, 1962 (age 49) Everett, Massachusetts, USA
Nationality	American Australian
Occupation	author, researcher, engineer, futurist and teacher
Known for	co-inventor of VRML

Mark D. Pesce ( /ˈpɛʃiː/ PESH-ee) is an author, researcher, engineer, futurist and teacher.

Biography[link]

September 1980, Pesce attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), for a Bachelor of Science degree, but left in June 1982 to pursue opportunities in the newly emerging high-technology industry. He worked as an Engineer for the next few years, developing prototype firmware and software for SecurID cards. In 1988, Pesce joined Shiva Corporation, which pioneered and popularized dial-up networking. Pesce's role in the company was to develop user interfaces, and his research in this area would lead him deeper into the questions posed by virtual reality. The company would grow from $1.5 million in sales in 1988, to $40 million when Pesce departed in early 1993.^[1]

In 1991, Pesce founded the Ono-Sendai Corporation, named after a fictitious company in the William Gibson novel Neuromancer. Ono-Sendai was a first-generation Virtual Reality (VR) start-up, chartered to create inexpensive, home-based networked VR systems. The company developed a key technology, which earned Pesce his first patent for a "Sourceless Orientation Sensor," which is used to track the motion of persons in virtual environments. Sega Corporation of America would use the technology on the design of the Sega Virtua VR, a consumer head-mounted display (HMD).^[1]

In 1993, Apple hired Pesce as a consulting engineer, to develop intuitive interfaces between Apple and IBM networking products.^[2] In early 1994, while in San Francisco, Pesce and software engineers Tony Parisi and Gavin Bell, spearheaded an effort to standardize 3D on the Web, and invented VRML Architecture Group (VAG), under the leadership of Pesce.^[3] The purpose of VRML was to allow for the creation of 3-D environments within the World Wide Web, accessible through a web browser. Working in conjunction with such corporations as Microsoft, Netscape, Silicon Graphics, Sun Microsystems, and Sony, Pesce was able to convince the industry to accept the new protocol as a standard for desktop virtual reality. This development spring-boarded Pesce into a career which has included extensive writings for both the popular and scientific press, teaching and lecturing at universities, conferences around the globe, performances, presentations, and films appearances.

In 2003, Pesce relocated to Australia, where he continues to live, and became an Australian citizen on 4 February 2011.^[4] He is an Honorary Lecturer at the University of Sydney and is a judge on The New Inventors, a nationally televised television program in Australia.

In 2006, Pesce founded FutureSt, a Sydney consultancy dedicated to helping clients negotiate the challenges presented by our hyperconnected future, serving as an advisory to analytic's firm PeopleBrowsr, and The Serval Project, a self-organizing mobile network for disaster areas.^[5]

In 2008, Pesce began writing an online column for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation's The Drum Opinion.^[6]

Currently, Pesce is designing and coding Plexus,^[7] a Web2.0 address book and social networking tool. He is also writing his next book, The Next Billion Seconds.^[8]

Teaching[link]

Pesce began his teaching career in 1996 as a VRML instructor at both the University of California at Santa Cruz and San Francisco State University, where he would later create the school's certificate program in the 3-D Arts. In 1998, Pesce was asked to join the faculty of the University of Southern California, as the founding chair of the Graduate Program in Interactive Media at the USC School of Cinema-Television.^[9] From January 2004 through January 2006, Pesce was the senior lecturer in Emerging Media and Interactive Design at the Australian Film Television and Radio School (AFTRS) in Sydney, Australia. He now holds an Honorary Appointment at the University of Sydney and has shared some of his lectures online.^[10]

Ideas, Thought and Influences[link]

Virtual Reality[link]

Pesce has said that technologies act as amputations; But that these amputations ultimately give us greater abilities. In perceptual cybernetics, the entire universe is divided into three fields of information. Everything outside of you, everything inside of you (thoughts, emotions and feelings), and everything in between; because there is no excluded middle in this theory. Pesce stresses the importance to identify the boundaries that exist between these fields of information because information is always lost at these boundaries. He gives the example:

"If I were to take an infrared remote control for a television set and flash it at you, well there is information coming out of the device, but you don't perceive it because you aren't sensually equipped for it. Information is being lost at the boundary between the physical world and your biology. On the other hand, if I were to say, "Watashi wa midori no chiisai no hito desu." (Japanese for "I am a little green man"), information might be lost between your biology and your cognitive self. So if you're Japanese you have an innate interface to this information so that it can go from the physical world into the world of your self. But if you don't know Japanese, then that information gets filtered away as noise in the FX/Psi boundary."

Web 2.0[link]

Pesce describes the difference between the Web 1.0 era, and Web 2.0 era, as not being so much related to publishing as to communication, stating: "Wiki's were invented in 1995. They're an early web technology; but everybody thinks of them as being the quintessential Web 2.0 technology; they're not. The way we use a wiki. So it's not about the hardware and the technology, it's about, the software of the culture... It's a communication medium, and that's where that entire shift in emphasis came from; just static web pages to now; it's all about the conversation." Pesce says that if the culture has an inherent level of trust, that people are more willing to join each other in debate and discussion, whereas, when no trust is established it becomes incoherent and falls apart.^[11]

Censorship and File Distribution[link]

Pesce has distributed digital versions of his hardcover publications for free on his website, licensed under the Creative Commons - ShareAlike License.^[12] On the topic of censorship and file sharing, Pesce states that whenever there's a block that's artificial, that's non inherent, that people will find a way around it and that, for good or for ill, it may be functionally impossible to stop or censor information. Paraphrasing an Interview in 2008, Pesce says: "This is why when you try to control some piece of medium it becomes hyper-distributed, because whenever there's a block it puts pressure to find a way around it. If you put that barrier up you're going to drain that audience away; and now what you have is a situation where the more something is shared, potentially, the more valuable it becomes.",^[11] perhaps referring to positive network externalities.

Crowdsourcing and Sharing[link]

Pesce's view is that humans are hard-wired to share, pointing to work by British anthropologist Robin Dunbar, that evolution favored our ability to share to enable us to survive longer. He uses the folk story of the Stone Soup as a metaphor for this collaborative lesson in cooperation, especially amid scarcity. Pesce also warns that systems of cultural control are no longer able to cope with this accelerated hyper-connectivity. He points to examples of Sexting and Jury systems as being unable to detach from this increased ability to share information, stating that traditional newspapers will be extinct within the next decade.^[13]

Pesce suggest that our connected collaborative actions, aimed towards a common purpose, has always been inherent but has always been too difficult to happen on a global scale; that it needed hyperconnectivity to be released. He points to the recent events in Japan, at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, as an example of common people working together to achieve a common purpose. Pesce argues that today's technologies aren't just gadgets or toys, but instead provide immediate abilities to a life-line; Pointing to how Japanese citizens became self-organized, collecting the information the Japanese government could not provide, using a website named Safecast.org, which mapped radiation levels on personal Geiger counters all across Japan.^[14]

Pesce declares: "Wikipedia has changed the way we make knowledge. Wikipedia was not supposed to work. Wikipedia was supposed to implode in noise and lies and endless arguments about how many angels could dance on the head of Richard Dawkins; And instead has become the singular reference work, the common connected touchstone for a connected species." Pesce says: "People connected in their numbers simply overwhelm, out-perform, and thrust aside all obstacles, whether they are cultural or legal, that your can put in their way; and this is where we are right now." ^[15]

Open Source[link]

Pesce says about open source software: "I don't know if you're familiar with path dependence, but it's a new type of economics. If you're selling, for instance, a particular platform of computer, what counts is for you to get as much platform penetration as possible, because the more platform penetration you have, the more pathways you have to move your product. The more people who own a particular type of computer means that more people will own that computer because more software will be developed for it...it's like an economic snowball effect. That's called path dependence."^[16]

Spiritual Beliefs and Practices[link]

Pesce was raised Catholic, but later converted into Pentecostal Protestantism. After reaching nearly 30 years old, he conceptualizes his belief system as something more akin to Paganism, with a mixture of Christian, pre-Christian, Buddhist and Taoist traditions.^[17] While developing VRML, Pesce began to more seriously study Witchcraft, conceptualizing how VRML could be used to create a sacred space. From this he conceptualized what he called the CyberSamhain, which was a ritual held simultaneously in cyberspace and in real space. The ritual was publicly available on the web for anyone who wanted to join, either on the web, or in real space.^[18] Pesce says he was attempting to represent how he saw the Internet forming, as a self-organizing system of intelligent parts coming together to create a whole. He views the practice of witchcraft, as a religion of harmony with yourself and the environment, harmonizing yourself with the cycle of time and being able to deduce what things are appropriate to the moment.

Pesce confesses that when he brings a new website online, before it goes public, he's places a page of invocation and blessing on its root page, to realize a sacred intention for it, saying: "If we don't bless the machinery, if we don't imbue it with the sacred, then it will invariably profane us."^[18]

Publications[link]

Film projects[link]

• Man With a Movie Tube, short form video, January 2007
• Unbomb, short form video, August 2003.
• Body Hits (BBC 3), location producer, November 2002.
• This Strange Eventful History, feature length video about Burning Man, August 2002
• Becoming Transhuman, feature length video, inspired by Terence McKenna and others, August 2001

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Mark Pesce

• Mark Pesce's personal homepage
• Mark Pesce's professional homepage
• Mark Pesce's professional blog
• WebEarth: A Seminal VRML application