From a brief IMconversation with Kai this morning regarding the noosphere:
“if I discovered we were in the Matrix I wouldn’t try to destroy it, I’d apply to become a designer.
If tanks were made of bosons.
I’d be very scared of Matt Webb. A long and thoughtful post about games and rulespaces at interconnected.org/home
Feed me, Auntie.
Those marvellous people at BBC News have public-beta’d some RSS feeds for us all to enjoy:
BBC News Frontpage Index
http://www.bbc.co.uk/syndication/feeds/news/ukfs_news/front_page/rss091.xml
BBC News Technology Index
http://www.bbc.co.uk/syndication/feeds/news/ukfs_news/technology/rss091.xml
BBC News UK Index
http://www.bbc.co.uk/syndication/feeds/news/ukfs_news/uk/rss091.xml
BBC News World Index
http://www.bbc.co.uk/syndication/feeds/news/ukfs_news/world/rss091.xml
Rebrand ‘Broadband’
Bill Thompson’s set something off again:
“I have to end with a whinge – as a technical pedant, I’m annoyed at the use of the word broadband for what is really just a moderately fast, always on connection, but I can live with it.
It does not mean fast, but when the marketing droids at the telecoms companies were looking for a word to describe alternatives to dialup connection, it was the unlucky victim and is now a ruined word.
I think this is a shame, and wish we had a better word for a fairly fast, always-on connection. Any suggestions? “
Here’s the thing. Bill’s “former audience” have come up with a great suggestion for rebranding broadband.
Scroll down the bottom of the story, and 8 posts there’s a suggestion by “Daniel, UK”. He suggests that we no longer refer to “broadband” but instead…
“Permanet”
I love that. It describes what’s best about having an always-on connection – being permanently connected to your friends, your community, your favourite sources of information and the potential of the internet; and swipes away the marketing-notion that it’s all about having fat-content pushed at you.
I’m not buying broadband – I want my Permanet!
Thank you “Daniel, UK” whoever you are!
FOAFing about.
DJ Adams posts a nice little statrer-kit of FOAF links. FOAF stands for ‘Friend Of A Friend’ and amongst other things, enables the encoding of social relationships on the web:
“Good grief. Anyway, this exploration is certainly opening more doors than it’s closing. Actually, that’s not quite right. It’s showing me new doors that I choose to go through. This one had FOAF written on it in shiny brass letters.”
» DJ’s Weblog: “From REST to URIs, the Semantic Web, RDF, and FOAF”
File under ‘oooh!’
“The Spring Desktop is concept-centric, not file, folder, site, or brand-centric. It’s designed for the way you naturally think.”
» Spring [via interconnected]
Sustainable computing
How green is your laptop? A thread on the awesome Barbelith Underground about sustainable computing musing about more viridian design alternatives has emerged:
“Machines are constructed to obsolescence – especially computers. That’s about as environmentally friendly as disposable batteries and plastic bags. It’s a lunacy.
So where are the computers built to last? The boxes made of something other than plastic, where modular components can be inserted, discarded, or added on as new levels of power become available?”
I have a very beautiful sliver of titanium, silicon, polycarbonate etc. on my desk that is the result of some fairly intensive and wasteful wittling down from enormous lumps of ore and rock.
At Doors6, John Thackara questioned precisely this myth that computing technology was ‘lightweight’ by asking the audience to imagine the ‘ecological rucksack’ that his powerbook actually represented – the raw materials discarded in order to manufacture the objects that power what we perceive to be lightweight, modern and immaterial. He paced the stage describing the 50ft by 50ft by 50ft cube of material that had to be winnowed down into the A4-sized plastic clam of his powerbook. Very powerful mental image.
» Barbelith Underground >> Laboratory >> Sustainable computers?
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N.B. Doors7 earlybird registration closes tommorrow. I just registered. Andrew Otwell has posted an eloquent description of why it’s such a great event. I;d only add that, at the time of going to my first Doors I was left baffled and unmoved by a lot of it, and thought I may have wasted my money… only to find themes and ideas from the event percolating up through my thoughts and into my work for the rest of the year…
Stuck behind a firewall, but want to chat?
Zelda’s got just the thing for you:
“ZeldaChat came about because information wants to be free…well actually because I was working for a company that made using instant messaging a sackable offence. This little chat app will work through firewalls, and doesn’t store your conversation…so no one’s any the wiser!”
Modern romance
From the excellent growing debate and commentary section “The People Vs Copyright” at Opendemocracy.net:
“Quite simply, then, copyright turns symbolic forms into property, and market conditions ensure it is held and exploited by corporations. But this is not a reality which sits very easily with public opinion. For while the concept of private property in tangible goods, or chattels, is deeply ingrained in Western societies, the same cannot be said about symbolic works. A strong consensus, emerging first in the Enlightenment, has it that culture should circulate freely. The Romantic movement then contributes the idea that art and commerce are opposed, that the artist is in heroic opposition to the drive for profit.
It is something of a contradiction, then, that in the modern era the figure of the Romantic artist is invoked to justify copyright the very basis of commerce in culture.”
The Syd Mead project
Wonderful little site (uses frames) showcasing the work of reknowned futurist and illustrator Syd Mead.
Petafloptimism 