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Essential First Steps: Installing Perl Plus a Programming Environment

Mark D. LeBlanc and Betsey Dexter Dyer

in Perl for Exploring DNA

Clear directions for Mac OS X and Windows users alike are provided to get these respective hardware systems set up for programming in Perl. This chapter provides as much encouragement and support as ... More

Clear directions for Mac OS X and Windows users alike are provided to get these respective hardware systems set up for programming in Perl. This chapter provides as much encouragement and support as possible. Getting through the chapter with success will make the activities of the subsequent chapters possible. The instructions here are the sine qua non of the rest of the book because they tell how to get ‘Perl’ up and running. Side boxes include encouragement for forging new research relationships.Less

‘Unscrupulously Epic’

Isobel Hurst

in Victorian Women Writers and the Classics: The Feminine of Homer

This chapter emphasizes how Elizabeth Barrett Browning, a woman who was largely self-taught, successfully negotiated gender difficulties by choosing to concentrate on poetry rather than philological ... More

This chapter emphasizes how Elizabeth Barrett Browning, a woman who was largely self-taught, successfully negotiated gender difficulties by choosing to concentrate on poetry rather than philological scholarship. Her autobiographical essays demonstrate how a woman whose access to the classics was comparatively easy might imagine herself as the author of a female epic, ‘the feminine of Homer’. In her earliest poems, she attempted to emulate the poetry of canonical authors such as Homer, Milton, and Pope. The Italian Risorgimento enabled her to write a poem on an epic subject with a contemporary setting, Casa Guidi Windows. In Aurora Leigh, Barrett Browning draws on classical epic, the mock-heroic poetry of Pope and Byron, and Victorian women's novels to create a new kind of epic.Less

The Great Shout of the Universe

Jonathan R. Eller

in Bradbury Beyond Apollo

“The Great Shout of the Universe,” Bradbury’s planetarium scenario for the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum, proved too far removed from the more factual presentation that the Smithsonian expected, and ... More

“The Great Shout of the Universe,” Bradbury’s planetarium scenario for the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum, proved too far removed from the more factual presentation that the Smithsonian expected, and the project did not move forward. Chapter 15 shows how Bradbury was able to salvage the concept and have it mounted instead in the Aerospace Museum in Los Angeles as “The Windows of the Universe.” Bradbury went on to compose original verses in the Spanish saeta tradition for “Our Lady Queen of the Angels,” built by Hollywood set designer Tony Duquette and mounted in the Los Angeles Museum of Science and Industry. Bradbury’s work with the American Film Institute seminars and the George Pal Memorial Lecture concludes the chapter.Less

Introduction

Issa Kohler-Hausmann

in Misdemeanorland: Criminal Courts and Social Control in an Age of Broken Windows Policing

This introductory chapter gives a brief overview of “misdemeanorland” and how it is studied. “Misdemeanorland” is a colloquialism used by people who work in the courts that receive the large volume ... More

This introductory chapter gives a brief overview of “misdemeanorland” and how it is studied. “Misdemeanorland” is a colloquialism used by people who work in the courts that receive the large volume of cases generated by New York City's signature policing tactics. The term designates a jurisdictional and physical space where these cases are processed. Within the context of the city's Broken Window enforcement, the expression “misdemeanorland” also signifies the widely shared notion that there is something unique about the operations of justice in the subfelony world. Many social science and media accounts of the U.S. criminal justice system tend to address either the back or front end of the system. In the age of mass incarceration, much public and scholarly focus has been directed at the back end, at what many of us assume to be the end point of most arrests: prison or jail. But between police and jails stands an institution assigned the role of deciding which people identified by police will end up in jail, prison, or elsewhere: the criminal court.Less

The Rise of Mass Misdemeanors

Issa Kohler-Hausmann

in Misdemeanorland: Criminal Courts and Social Control in an Age of Broken Windows Policing

This chapter briefly recounts the origins of the policing experiment of the early 1990s that flew under the Broken Windows banner. It also explores how that experiment has become an institutionalized ... More

This chapter briefly recounts the origins of the policing experiment of the early 1990s that flew under the Broken Windows banner. It also explores how that experiment has become an institutionalized feature of New York City's law enforcement since then. The history is tailored to highlight those changes in enforcement that most affected the flow and composition of cases into the lower criminal courts. It also portrays how the justifications for this policing model demanded bureaucratic practices that in turn shaped how these low-level cases came to be processed by criminal justice actors. Specifically, the chapter emphasizes the new record-keeping and record-sharing practices that the police and courts innovated in this period in an effort to mark suspected persons for later encounters and to check up on prior records to identify and target persistent or serious offenders.Less

‘You Know How it Ends’: Metafiction and 9/11 in Windows on the World

Martin Randall

in 9/11 and the Literature of Terror

This chapter studies Frederic Beigbeder's Windows on the World, which takes the most creative and ethical risks in dealing with the attacks. It considers the developing suggestion that fictional ... More

This chapter studies Frederic Beigbeder's Windows on the World, which takes the most creative and ethical risks in dealing with the attacks. It considers the developing suggestion that fictional realism may not be the most effective genre in representing the attacks. It also looks at Claire Messud's The Emperor's Children, which deals with the ‘interruption’ of 9/11. The chapter determines how Beigbeder is able to mix fiction and non-fiction, in order to produce a work that is consistently self-aware.Less

Heartbreak House: “A Long Garden Seat on the West”

Tony Jason Stafford and R. F. Dietrich

in Shaw's Settings: Gardens and Libraries

Nature, invention, human vileness, and Creative Evolution all conjoin in Hector’s speech in Act III: “Heaven’s threatening growl of disgust at us useless futile creatures. [Fiercely] I tell you, one ... More

Nature, invention, human vileness, and Creative Evolution all conjoin in Hector’s speech in Act III: “Heaven’s threatening growl of disgust at us useless futile creatures. [Fiercely] I tell you, one of two things must happen. Either out of that darkness some new creation will come to supplant us as we have supplanted the animals, or the heavens will fall in thunder and destroy us.” It is uttered in the garden, toward which the whole play has been moving, with the backdrop of nature (“heavens”), the theme of invention (“some new creation”), the revelation of the vileness of human invention when cut off from nature (“us useless futile creatures”), and the suggestion of Creative Evolution (“will supplant us as we have supplanted the animals”). In brief, the passage summarizes one of the play’s themes: the baseness of human invention when alienated from, and contrasted with, nature’s creativeness, as symbolized by the garden and nature.Less

Strategies and Techniques of the Advertiser

Katherine Roeder

in Wide Awake in Slumberland: Fantasy, Mass Culture, and Modernism in the Art of Winsor McCay

The fifth chapter addresses similarities between McCay's comics and the design of department store displays, show windows, and print advertisements. The early twentieth century witnessed the sudden ... More

The fifth chapter addresses similarities between McCay's comics and the design of department store displays, show windows, and print advertisements. The early twentieth century witnessed the sudden expansion of the mass-produced toy industry and the emergence of holiday show windows directed at children.Handbooks for window dressers encouraged seasonal displays and whimsical subjects that would appeal to juvenile audiences. McCay's work centered on fantasy and longing, and these qualities were key features of the burgeoning commercial environment. He routinely created holiday-themed comics celebrating Thanksgiving and Christmas as periods of unrestrained excess and consumption. McCay's compositions feature the symmetrical designs, bold color schemes and towers of stacked goods commonly found in visual displays of the period. This chapter considers how the skills young audiences acquired by interpreting word and image in the pages of the funny papers were transferred to the world of advertising and display.Less

System Event Sounds

Morten Breinbjerg

in Software Studies: A Lexicon

In this chapter, the author explains the unique sounds that are assigned to the program events, such as start-up and shut-off tones in the Windows computers; he describes this concept with reference ... More

In this chapter, the author explains the unique sounds that are assigned to the program events, such as start-up and shut-off tones in the Windows computers; he describes this concept with reference to the Microsoft Windows operating system. The author describes the scenario that the event sounds inform a computer status such as battery low, access denied, etc.; in the next parts of the chapter, he also expresses his views on the other aesthetic uses. The chapter focuses on how sounds are used and for what reasons, along with their other semiotic uses. The concluding part of the chapter states that these sounds have become part of the day-to-day computing process and can be personalized, modified, and even replaced.Less

Conclusion: Trying but failing to renew social democracy

Eunice Goes

in The Labour Party under Ed Miliband: Trying but failing to renew social democracy

This chapter argues that the Labour Party under Ed Miliband tried but failed to renew social democracy. Ed Miliband developed an egalitarian agenda ideologically cogent and that was predicated on the ... More

This chapter argues that the Labour Party under Ed Miliband tried but failed to renew social democracy. Ed Miliband developed an egalitarian agenda ideologically cogent and that was predicated on the reforms to capitalism and to the state. However, the timing of his leadership, his image problems, his inability to obtain the support of relevant political actors, the resilience of neoliberalism as the prevailing political paradigm led to a dilution of his agenda. As a result his attempt to renew social democracy was robbed of boldness, clarity, coherence and persuasiveness. This outcome partly explains Labour’s defeat at the 2015 general election. The chapter concludes by arguing that the future of the Labour Party relies on keeping some aspects of Milibandism.Less

Markets

in The Microsoft Case: Antitrust, High Technology, and Consumer Welfare

This chapter, which investigates the markets at issue in Microsoft, also discusses the warring concepts of the operating system and its relationship to middleware, such as the browser and Java. It ... More

This chapter, which investigates the markets at issue in Microsoft, also discusses the warring concepts of the operating system and its relationship to middleware, such as the browser and Java. It then reports the economic concepts, particularly the theory of network effects, that guided the framing of markets, and examines critically how courts defined the markets for operating systems and middleware. Microsoft was criticized for failing to incorporate some functions into earlier versions of Windows. The development of the operating system responds to both technological changes and consumer preferences. The court's emphasis on network effects obscures the influence of other economic conditions on the market. Microsoft undoubtedly had the power profitably to raise the price of Windows for a significant period of time without inducing consumers to switch to an alternative operating system. Software developers produce applications that are specific to and run on top of media players.Less

Aftermath

in The Microsoft Case: Antitrust, High Technology, and Consumer Welfare

The Microsoft case was drawn on the new theory of network effects and path dependence to explain the emergence and persistence of Microsoft as the dominant supplier of operating systems, and it ... More

The Microsoft case was drawn on the new theory of network effects and path dependence to explain the emergence and persistence of Microsoft as the dominant supplier of operating systems, and it gained urgency from the importance of the products to the “new economy.” The theory underlying the case reflected the effect of the intentional vision in many respects. The experience in the private follow-on litigation was disturbing, primarily because of the indirect purchaser class actions. The European Commission's antitrust case against Microsoft indicates the need for reform in global antitrust enforcement. The Commission remedy required Microsoft to create a version of Windows without its media player and mandated disclosures of communications protocols. It is finally noted that Microsoft's attention to antitrust issues has changed markedly as a result of its experience in the litigation.Less

Chick Corea

Keith Waters

in Postbop Jazz in the 1960s: The Compositions of Wayne Shorter, Herbie Hancock, and Chick Corea

Chick Corea’s prolific compositional career began in the 1960s, even if he likely went on to greater acclaim in the 1970s with compositions such as “La Fiesta” and “Crystal Silence.” “Windows” (Inner ... More

Chick Corea’s prolific compositional career began in the 1960s, even if he likely went on to greater acclaim in the 1970s with compositions such as “La Fiesta” and “Crystal Silence.” “Windows” (Inner Space) uses ascending perfect fifth progressions as a large-scale harmonic frame for the composition, although harmonic substitutions expand that frame, and the skeletal melody (often appearing on metrical downbeats) creates longer underlying lines. A comparison of the recording with Corea’s copyright deposit shows a degree of evolution in the composition, particularly through harmonic inversions and stepwise bass motion. “Inner Space” (Inner Space) uses a melodic major third axis progression (in the introduction and later in the composition), but particular harmonic substitutions suggest a second-order grammar in which the progressions do not shadow the melodic axis. As with many Corea compositions from the 1960s, a centrifugal harmonic progression closes with an expanded harmonic turnaround to return to the m. 1 harmony. Three versions of “Song of the Wind” (Complete “Is” Sessions, Joe Farrell Quartet, Piano Improvisations vol. 1) illustrate Corea’s move to a more complex harmonic language, using polychords and expanded pedal points. Despite stark differences between the more progressive harmonic language of “Song of the Wind” and his earlier “Windows,” a comparison of the melodic designs of both jazz waltzes indicates some overall structural similarities.Less

O bella libertà

Clare Pettitt

in Serial Revolutions 1848: Writing, Politics, Form

Chapter 8 discusses the virtual return of the fourteenth-century Republic of Florence as an inspiration for Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s long poem Casa Guidi Windows. A drama of interpretation and ... More

Chapter 8 discusses the virtual return of the fourteenth-century Republic of Florence as an inspiration for Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s long poem Casa Guidi Windows. A drama of interpretation and partial vision, the two-part poem was written between 1847 and 1851, spanning a moment of hope for the Risorgimento republicans in Florence and its collapse when monarchist troops marched into the city in 1849. The first part of the poem recounts the Florentine celebration on 12 September 1847 when Grand Duke Leopold II promised a new constitution, a guardia civile, and a free press to the Florentines, while the second part records the entry of the Austrian imperial army of occupation on 2 May 1849. Casa Guidi Windows breaks dramatically in half between action completed and action yet to take place, and Chapter 8 contextualizes the poem in the newly energized political and print culture of Florence in 1847.Less

Casa Guidi

Alison Chapman

in Networking the Nation: British and American Women's Poetry and Italy, 1840–1870

While frequently described by biographers and critics as set up in opposition to Florence’s salon culture, this chapter draws on extensive evidence in Barrett Browning’s correspondence and poetry to ... More

While frequently described by biographers and critics as set up in opposition to Florence’s salon culture, this chapter draws on extensive evidence in Barrett Browning’s correspondence and poetry to argue that her Florentine home, and the main base during her marriage, operated as a kind of salon, largely defined in opposition to Villino Trollope. In particular, this chapter argues that Barrett Browning’s narrative poem that bears the name of her home, Casa Guidi Windows, inaugurated her home as a salon and also a literary shrine for tourists and aspiring female writers. Above all, Casa Guidi was, like the other Florentine salons run by expatriate women poets, intrinsic to the act of writing and the act of writing political poetry. Both Casa Guidi and its eponymous poem are the grounds of Barrett Browning’s Risorgimento historiography.Less

The child in the street

Daniel Karlin

in Street Songs: Writers and urban songs and cries, 1800-1925

In the optimistic opening of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Casa Guidi Windows (1851), street song appears as a sign of political regeneration. Hearing a little child singing ‘O bella libertà’ in a ... More

In the optimistic opening of Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Casa Guidi Windows (1851), street song appears as a sign of political regeneration. Hearing a little child singing ‘O bella libertà’ in a street in Florence in 1847, Barrett Browning projects a future for Italy in which the poetry of loss and lament will be replaced by a modern song of enlightenment and freedom. These hopes, raised by the revolutions of 1848, were crushed in the defeats that followed, and the second part of Casa Guidi Windows reflects with mordant irony on these events. The figure of the child in the street is replaced by that of her own child, born in 1849; yet Barrett Browning returns, in a number of later poems, to the child singing of liberty, especially in poems written in the last year of her life, when the prospects for a united Italy were again resurgent.Less

Forms of the Future

Clare Pettitt

in Serial Revolutions 1848: Writing, Politics, Form

Chapters 9 and 10 start to consider the longer-term aesthetic effects of 1848 on writing and art, extending into the 1850s and 1860s. The publication of Casa Guidi Windows and its immediate ... More

Chapters 9 and 10 start to consider the longer-term aesthetic effects of 1848 on writing and art, extending into the 1850s and 1860s. The publication of Casa Guidi Windows and its immediate translation into Italian marked the fuller entry of the Brownings into the Italian and expatriate nationalist community in Florence. There they encountered the Macchiaioli painters who were trying to find a new visual language for the time of interruption and delay as they awaited the next stage of the revolution. Margaret Fuller’s arrival in Florence in 1849 led to an important friendship with Barrett Browning. The angry and uncompromising 1860 Poems Before Congress owes much to Fuller’s feminist influence as Barrett Browning extends the category of the ‘political’ to include women’s experience. The poems bring together the wrongs of slavery with the Italian cause to make a transatlantic case for human rights and draw upon the universalist moment of 1848.Less

AWS and UFOs

Michael Heim

in Virtual Realism

Something....-What? —A phenomenon. Something intrusive, something vague but insistent, pushing itself upon us. — Something outside? From afar? Something alien? — Something descending in the night, ... More

Something....-What? —A phenomenon. Something intrusive, something vague but insistent, pushing itself upon us. — Something outside? From afar? Something alien? — Something descending in the night, standing in the shadows at the foot of the bed. —An illusion? Hallucination maybe? A quirky twist of imagination? — No, definitely a presence, something that might be a someone, a someone with wires and electric sensors, probing, penetrating, exploring private parts. Something lifting us off the familiar face of the planet we thought we knew so well, beaming us outside the orbit of our comfortable homes. Definitely something indefinite . . . or someone. —We hear about them only from others who speak about sightings of unidentified objects in the sky, because we do not allow ourselves to be counted among the unstable few who acknowledge the possibility of something outside the circle of our sciences. Those unstable few accept belief in something standing in the shadows at the door. We listen closely to those speaking about incidents of the phenomenon. We do not look. — Something IS out there. We’ve seen and heard it in the night. It’s contacting us. The phenomenon certainly exists in late-night chat like the above. It exists as metaphysical hearsay, as an internal dialogue between what we believe and what we think we are willing to believe. Popular descriptions of “the incident” waver between child-like awe and tongue-in-cheek tabloid humor. Here is where our knowledge, as a culturally defined certainty, becomes most vulnerable. Here we discover the soft edges of knowledge as an established and culturally underwritten form of belief. What a thrill to feel the tug of war on the thin thread of shared belief! A blend of religious archetypes and science-fiction imagery supplies the words for those who tell about the incident. The stories often float up through hypnosis or “recovered memory” hypnotherapy, as in the famous case of Betty and Barney Hill who experienced abduction one September night in New Hampshire in 1961. Researchers have recently plotted consistently recurring patterns in thousands of stories, and the mythic dimension of the story line has not been lost on Hollywood. Less