Monday, January 13, 2003

I guess the part I like least about the weblog format is the disjointed, backwards coming at you nature of posting tidbits of interest to me. Random bits. Here's a cool daily MP3 sound archive of incredibly strange outsider musics, and here's a truly lucid summary of how Microsoft's forthcoming Palladium digital rights management (DRM) initiative works, why it's going to further restrict our eroding consumer rights and further tighten MS's grip on the digital landscape, and what other options options may be available to us. But life is too short right now, no time to think it through, to organize the flood of data into a meaningful whole, to reveal the patterns manifesting in the ceaseless ebb and flow of information. That being said, here are more tidbits that have captured my attention for more than a few seconds at a time:   We Media (Dan Gillmor) "...in an emerging era of multidirectional, digital communications, the audience can be an integral part of the process. Call it "We Media." Journalism is evolving away from its lecture mode - here's the news, and you buy it or you don't - to include a conversation. " . "In my own case, I've found that my readers definitely know more than I do, and, to my benefit, they share their knowledge. At a technology conference last March, a telecommunications chief executive groaned onstage about his troubles. I noted this in my Web log, which I was updating from the audience via a wireless network link. Soon I (along with Doc Searls, another journalist-blogger), got messages from a reader in another city. The reader included hyperlinks to an authoritative Web site showing how the executive had sold stock worth more than $200 million while his company was suffering. We both immediately posted this information. Some in the audience were soon reading our blogs, and the mood toward the ceo seemed to chill. Talk about real-time feedback." . "Interactive technology -- and the mostly young readers and viewers who use and understand it -- are the catalysts. We Media augments traditional methods with new and yet-to-be invented collaboration tools ranging from e-mail to Web logs to digital video to peer-to-peer systems. But it boils down to something simple: our readers collectively know more than we do, and they don't have to settle for half-baked coverage when they can come into the kitchen themselves. This is not a threat. It is an opportunity. And the evolution of We Media will oblige us all to adapt. "   Smart Mobs (Howard Rheingold) No doubt about it, something new is stirring in the spaces where cyberspace intersects with the real world. A hybrid form of artificial intelligence composed of countless millions of intelligent organic nodes connected with emerging technologies, interacting in myriad ways, forming disolving and reforming new inter-connections at an amazing rate. And it is not relegated to operating in cyberspace, but its effects are being increasingly felt in the real world. Read Mr. Gillmor's post above, check out how cell phones were critical in recent elections in Kenya. It's the tip of the iceberg, this Smart Mob phenomena is mutating and self-organizing with amazing speed. Howard's book Smart Mobs is the place to get up to speed, and the Smart Mobs Weblog is the place to keep up. Here's what Howard has to say: "Smart mobs emerge when communication and computing technologies amplify human talents for cooperation. The impacts of smart mob technology already appear to be both beneficial and destructive, used by some of its earliest adopters to support democracy and by others to coordinate terrorist attacks. The technologies that are beginning to make smart mobs possible are mobile communication devices and pervasive computing - inexpensive microprocessors embedded in everyday objects and environments. Already, governments have fallen, youth subcultures have blossomed from Asia to Scandinavia, new industries have been born and older industries have launched furious counterattacks." "Street demonstrators in the 1999 anti-WTO protests used dynamically updated websites, cell-phones, and "swarming" tactics in the "battle of Seattle." A million Filipinos toppled President Estrada through public demonstrations organized through salvos of text messages." "The pieces of the puzzle are all around us now, but haven't joined together yet. The radio chips designed to replace barcodes on manufactured objects are part of it. Wireless Internet nodes in cafes, hotels, and neighborhoods are part of it. Millions of people who lend their computers to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence are part of it. The way buyers and sellers rate each other on Internet auction site eBay is part of it. Research by biologists, sociologists, and economists into the nature of cooperation offer explanatory frameworks. At least one key global business question is part of it - why is the Japanese company DoCoMo profiting from enhanced wireless Internet services while US and European mobile telephony operators struggle to avoid failure?" "The people who make up smart mobs cooperate in ways never before possible because they carry devices that possess both communication and computing capabilities. Their mobile devices connect them with other information devices in the environment as well as with other people's telephones. Dirt-cheap microprocessors embedded in everything from box tops to shoes are beginning to permeate furniture, buildings, neighborhoods, products with invisible intercommunicating smartifacts. When they connect the tangible objects and places of our daily lives with the Internet, handheld communication media mutate into wearable remote control devices for the physical world." "Media cartels and government agencies are seeking to reimpose the regime of the broadcast era in which the customers of technology will be deprived of the power to create and left only with the power to consume. That power struggle is what the battles over file-sharing, copy-protection, regulation of the radio spectrum are about. Are the populations of tomorrow going to be users, like the PC owners and website creators who turned technology to widespread innovation? Or will they be consumers, constrained from innovation and locked into the technology and business models of the most powerful entrenched interests?" I don't usually post such a big quote. But Howard touches on so many issues. As an information hunter-gatherer I sniff the air to see what's coming, which way the zeitgeist do blow. And this is it, this is the next revolution, and its effects will be felt everywhere. A thousand new conversations forming every second. What happens when a certain threshold of self-organization is reached?   On Hearing Voices (Joshua Allen) "There are six billion of us on the planet. Some people would have you believe that you should never ask any of us for advice, because we lie. But today I can't even hear your lies. The Internet has made it immensely easier to connect with expertise from other humans who want to share it, but we are still largely shackled by cultural, geographic, social, and technological constraints limiting who we can consult for advice. Today I get most of my lies from whichever barbarians have clawed their way to the top of the local and national media outlets. But sometimes when I see an advertisement for an interesting new product, I want to be able to pick up my remote control and click on "connect me to five people who hate the product and ask them why". I am sure that there are at least five people who want to give me a perspective different from the one being broadcast, so why can I not hear their voices? "   Copy cats and robotic dogs (Lawrence Lessig) "There's a lesson [in this example] that executives in the content industry should think about before they sign away their businesses to lawyers. The law is a rough-edged tool. It was not crafted by geniuses of economics. How it affects new and different markets is uncertain. A smart business therefore asks not whether the use of its content is "theft," but whether the use of its content will (eventually at least) benefit it. The business of business is to make business, not to purify the world of copyright violations." "Lawyers (save those from Chicago) are not typically trained to think about the business consequence of their legal advice. To many, business is beneath the law. When a Sony lawyer threatened a fan of the company's Aibo robotic dog, who had posted a hack online to teach the dog to dance to jazz, he or she no doubt never thought to ask exactly how making the Aibo dog more valuable to customers could possibly harm Sony. Harm was not the issue, a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was: consumers should be banned from hacking Sony dogs, whether or not it was to Sony's benefit."   The Big Question (edge.org) Edge Foundation, Inc., was established in 1988 as an outgrowth of a group known as The Reality Club. Its informal membership includes of some of the most interesting minds on the planet. The mandate of Edge Foundation is to promote inquiry into and discussion of intellectual, philosophical, artistic, and literary issues, as well as to work for the intellectual and social achievement of society. Every year they ask a question, and ask their membership to answer it. This years question was a hypothetical question from George W. Bush: "What are the pressing scientific issues for the nation and the world, and what is your advice on how I can begin to deal with them?" The answers of many many of the planet's finest minds can be found on this page. Contributors include Ray Kurzweil, Steven Pinker, Freeman Dyson, Kevin Kelly, Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi, Jaron Lanier, Marvin Minsky, David Gelernter, Eric Drexler, Richard Saul Wurman, Mary Catherine Bateson, Douglas Rushkoff, Clifford Pickover and lot's of other no doubt smart people. Fascinating reading, lots of reading, happy reading! 4:37:43 PM    comment [] 2002 Nebula Awards, preliminary ballot I like to read a good science fiction (or occasionally fantasy) novel. I abhor reading more of the same old same old. Outcaste cyber-elves on a quest through virtual reality to rescue their rightful king from a cybernetic dragon: been there, done that... Perhaps the following list will assist you in separating gold from dross. Perhaps you will get thee hither to your local library and search out these books and/or works by their authors. Perhaps, if thine spirit be bold and your purse be full, you will order one of more of these fine tomes from Mark V. Ziesing Bookseller, a right jolly and worthy fellow. The Nebula Awards will be announced at the 2002 Nebula Awards banquet in Philadelphia on April 19. A full list of ballot contenders follows. Thanks to the SciFi Wire for the update. Novel .Lion's Blood by Steven Barnes .Kiln People by David Brin .The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold .In the Company of Others by Julie E. Czerneda .American Gods by Neil Gaiman .The Other Wind by Ursula K. Le Guin .The Consciousness Plague by Paul Levinson .Illumination by Terry McGarry .Nekropolis by Maureen F. McHugh .Ombria in Shadow by Patricia McKillip .Picoverse by Robert A. Metzger .Perdido Street Station by China Mieville .Technogenesis by Syne Mitchell .Adventures in Time and Space with Max Merriwell by Pat Murphy .Dreams of the Compass Rose by Vera Nazarian .The Impossible Bird by Patrick O'Leary .The Getaway Special by Jerry Oltion .J. by William Sanders .Child of Venus by Pamela Sargent .Hominids by Robert J. Sawyer .Argonaut by Stanley Schmidt .Alien Taste by Wen Spencer .The Peshawar Lancers by S.M. Stirling .Bones of the Earth by Michael Swanwick .Compass Reach by Mark W. Tiedemann .Divine Intervention by Ken Wharton Novella ."Bug Out!" by Michael A. Burstein and Shane Tourtellotte ."Sunday Night Yams at Minnie and Earl's" by Adam-Troy Castro ."Hell Is the Absence of God" by Ted Chiang ."Bronte's Egg" by Richard Chwedyk ."The Chief Designer" by Andy Duncan ."The Political Officer" by Charles Coleman Finlay ."In Spirit" by Pat Forde ."Magic's Price" by Bud Sparhawk Novelette ."The Ferryman's Wife" by Richard Bowes ."Look Away" by Stephen L. Burns ."Madonna of the Maquiladora" by Gregory Frost ."The Job Interview" by Mike Moscoe ."When This World Is All on Fire" by William Sanders ."The Essayist in the Wilderness" by William Browning Spencer ."The Days Between" by Allen Steele ."Lobsters" by Charles Stross ."The Return of Spring" by Shane Tourtellotte Short Story ."Refugees from Nulongwe" by M. Shayne Bell ."Mirror" by Chris Bunch ."Spaceships" by Michael A. Burstein ."Creature" by Carol Emshwiller ."Creation" by Jeffrey Ford ."Iron Joan" by ElizaBeth Gilligan ."Cut" by Megan Lindholm ."Nothing Ever Happens in Rock City" by Jack McDevitt ."The Gods Abandon Alcibiades" by Joel Richards ."The Djinn Who Lives Between Night and Day" by Bruce Holland Rogers ."The Veil Beyond the Veil" by William Shunn ."Isolation Ward 4" by Kevin G. Summers ."The Dog Said Bow-Wow" by Michael Swanwick Script .Shrek by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio .The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Peter Jackson ."Once More With Feeling," Buffy the Vampire Slayer, by Joss Whedon 1:17:50 PM    comment [] 2002 Nebula Awards, preliminary ballot I like to read a good science fiction (or occasionally fantasy) novel. I abhor reading more of the same old same old. Outcaste cyber-elves on a quest through virtual reality to rescue their rightful king from a cybernetic dragon: been there, done that... Perhaps the following list will assist you in separating gold from dross. Perhaps you will get thee hither to your local library and search out these books and/or works by their authors. Perhaps, if thy spirit be bold and thine purse full, you will order one of more of these fine tomes from Mark V. Ziesing Bookseller, a right jolly and worthy fellow. The Nebula Awards will be announced at the 2002 Nebula Awards banquet in Philadelphia on April 19. A full list of ballot contenders follows. Thanks to the SciFi Wire for the head up. Novel .Lion's Blood by Steven Barnes .Kiln People by David Brin .The Curse of Chalion by Lois McMaster Bujold .In the Company of Others by Julie E. Czerneda .American Gods by Neil Gaiman .The Other Wind by Ursula K. Le Guin .The Consciousness Plague by Paul Levinson .Illumination by Terry McGarry .Nekropolis by Maureen F. McHugh .Ombria in Shadow by Patricia McKillip .Picoverse by Robert A. Metzger .Perdido Street Station by China Mieville .Technogenesis by Syne Mitchell .Adventures in Time and Space with Max Merriwell by Pat Murphy .Dreams of the Compass Rose by Vera Nazarian .The Impossible Bird by Patrick O'Leary .The Getaway Special by Jerry Oltion .J. by William Sanders .Child of Venus by Pamela Sargent .Hominids by Robert J. Sawyer .Argonaut by Stanley Schmidt .Alien Taste by Wen Spencer .The Peshawar Lancers by S.M. Stirling .Bones of the Earth by Michael Swanwick .Compass Reach by Mark W. Tiedemann .Divine Intervention by Ken Wharton Novella ."Bug Out!" by Michael A. Burstein and Shane Tourtellotte ."Sunday Night Yams at Minnie and Earl's" by Adam-Troy Castro ."Hell Is the Absence of God" by Ted Chiang ."Bronte's Egg" by Richard Chwedyk ."The Chief Designer" by Andy Duncan ."The Political Officer" by Charles Coleman Finlay ."In Spirit" by Pat Forde ."Magic's Price" by Bud Sparhawk Novelette ."The Ferryman's Wife" by Richard Bowes ."Look Away" by Stephen L. Burns ."Madonna of the Maquiladora" by Gregory Frost ."The Job Interview" by Mike Moscoe ."When This World Is All on Fire" by William Sanders ."The Essayist in the Wilderness" by William Browning Spencer ."The Days Between" by Allen Steele ."Lobsters" by Charles Stross ."The Return of Spring" by Shane Tourtellotte Short Story ."Refugees from Nulongwe" by M. Shayne Bell ."Mirror" by Chris Bunch ."Spaceships" by Michael A. Burstein ."Creature" by Carol Emshwiller ."Creation" by Jeffrey Ford ."Iron Joan" by ElizaBeth Gilligan ."Cut" by Megan Lindholm ."Nothing Ever Happens in Rock City" by Jack McDevitt ."The Gods Abandon Alcibiades" by Joel Richards ."The Djinn Who Lives Between Night and Day" by Bruce Holland Rogers ."The Veil Beyond the Veil" by William Shunn ."Isolation Ward 4" by Kevin G. Summers ."The Dog Said Bow-Wow" by Michael Swanwick Script .Shrek by Ted Elliott and Terry Rossio .The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring by Fran Walsh, Philippa Boyens and Peter Jackson ."Once More With Feeling," Buffy the Vampire Slayer, by Joss Whedon 11:05:59 AM    comment [] yet a second test... 9:17:59 AM    comment [] yet another test.... 9:16:49 AM    comment []

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