Wirearchy » 2004 » September

Doc Searls on the Spread of 7-11’s in the USA

admin — Thu, 30 Sep 2004 18:20:00 +0000

This is an interesting way of looking at things …. Doc passes on Frank Leahy’s perspectives on two-party politics (actually, i’d call 1.5 party politics).

The most interesting point to this brief piece is, I think, the extrapolation of this way of looking at things to most of our activities in daily life, our waking hours. We are so used to being bombarded by one-way marketing messages that, basically, I think many people get sort-of subconsciously annoyed if they are “forced” to think about things that may be a bit unclear or somehow ambiguous.

geez … I think that means we’re in for spot o’ trouble here and there, because it seems clear and unambiguous that human, environmental, political and other large-sclae issues aren’t likely to get less complex any time soon.

From Doc’s blog:

Frank Leahy: The 7-11-ification of Politics In America.

And the same thing has happened to American politics. The same two chains — Republicans and Democrats — are the only two stores in town. There¹s no longer a place to have a conversation about what matters in America. All the real conversations have been relegated to the far back corner, if you can even find them at all.

And what makes it worse is that the two parties aren¹t really interested in conversations, they¹re only interested in messages. Why are there no major newspapers or other media outlets that will present anything but the message of the day? Why is there no way in America to talk about the corporatification of America? No way to ask why health care isn¹t a right instead of a privilege? No way to suggest that maybe locking up people for using drugs might not be the best use of our money or their talents? No way to wonder why teachers are paid less than prison guards, or to do anything about it?

No, all the conversations are full of the same empty calories that you buy at the local village shop. There is no place for meat and vegetables in the national conversation.

Banff New Media Institute … The Kick-Off

admin — Thu, 30 Sep 2004 17:02:00 +0000

The Participate / Collaborate Summit is underway. A bit of introduction at first … Sara Diamond on “why collaborate, with whom and why”.

Then a tour around the room, with short introductions by all participants. Lots of very interesting people, focused on mostly interesting sounding (some kinda abstract) research and/or active art and social collaboratibve projects. people from all over Canada, fair representation from the UK, a couple of Americans, some people from the Netherlands, Germany and several people on line, in real-time streaming … from Germany, China and the USA.

Sunset - Upon Arrival at Banff Centre

admin — Thu, 30 Sep 2004 03:25:00 +0000

Here’s a picture I snapped in the first few hours following my arrival at the Banff Centre …. about half an hour after eating, and an hour after taking a swim.

I thought of Euan Semple as I took it … he has an ongoiing love affair with mountains, and so I hope he’ll see this picture … and want to come to Banff.

On Collaboration, the Arts, Technology and Democracy

admin — Wed, 29 Sep 2004 14:44:00 +0000

I’m off in a couple of hours to a four-day conference at the Banff New Media Institute, where I will be a panel member on Saturday. Seems like a great opportunity to meet some interesting people, and perhaps throw another stone into the ever-rippling pond of ideas, links and connections made possible by the Internet and the blogosphere.

Thanks to the Happy Tutor for helping cast a first stone, with his blog post titled “For the Banff Conference - A Bridge to some Online Conversations about Democracy, Giving, and Technology”

Thanks also to Tom Matrullo for his blog post that helps us begin to link our notions of a commons (pristine, middle-of-New-England-town-empty-spaces) to another view of the commons as lively, vibrant public renderings (zocalo) of an imperfect past and present shared by all for the ongoing construction of public memory.

Your Reality Adjustment Opportunity Is Waiting For You …

admin — Wed, 29 Sep 2004 14:03:00 +0000

…. In case this current 3D world is too much for you, here’s an easy way to slip into another dimension.

Just One Story

admin — Tue, 28 Sep 2004 13:01:00 +0000

This from a commenter over at Atrios, noting that the most recent Republican strategy is to pplay the victim, the underdog, and to pretend, over and over again that being against anything they say or do is being against Truth, Freedom, Motherhood, Apple Pie and the American Way.

Pernicious, and unfortunately much too effective.

As bad as NPR, PBS NewsHour tonight: Clarence Page (I think that’s the right name) in his commentary over the “Mission Accomplished” piece repeated the idiotic and easily disproven SCLM meme that “Bush never actually said ‘Mission Accomplished’”.

Contrast this utter contempt for facts or research with the story told by Scott Taylor that the mujahedeen who captured him in Iraq asked for proof he was a Canadian journalist, then went off to google him for verification. This in the middle of a war zone during a firefight!!

Christ. I just have to shut the fucking TV off now because I can’t listen to the swirling cesspool of liars any more

Billmon Makes A Very Strong Statement

admin — Sun, 26 Sep 2004 23:10:00 +0000

I am impressed by his past analyses, I trust his thinking, and he seems worried.

Billmon again demonstrates brevity and a clear point, here.

The Turning of the Seasons

admin — Sat, 25 Sep 2004 01:23:00 +0000

Here are a couple of pictures taken on the last day of the outdoor swimming season, at the Kitsilano swimming pool.

I have an ongoing love affair with this swimming pool. I have swum there all but a handful of the days this season, which runs from the last weekend in May until mid-September.

It’s 137.5 metres long which is the equivalent of 2 and 2/3 Olympic length swimming pools … it takes forever to do one length, and only 12 make it a mile that you will have swum.

The Interconnected Digital Economy, DRM, Content and Markets

admin — Fri, 24 Sep 2004 17:34:00 +0000

A must-read blog post, in which David adds another important laeyr of clarity and understanding of the fundamental market behaviours that are beginning to flow (and become visible) from a new set of structures for the interaction of information.

Here’s an excerpt - the last few paragraphs. You really need to read it from the beginning to get the full force and importance of what David writes here.

Then I described the End to End principle and how it’s enabled the Net to spawn an amazing marketplace of innovation. Tinker with the center and there can be disastrous unintended consequences. E.g., if packets contained bits that ID’ed the user in any strong sense, the Net would have been nought but a research library. (No, I don’t know that that’s true. Emergent effects are too hard to predict. It was just an example, and at least a few people nodded. Good enough.)

I said that I understand that to them the Net looks like a medium through which content passes, some of which people aren’t paying for. But, (sez I) their customers aren’t “consuming” content. We’re not consuming anything. We’re listening to music, We’re watching video streams, We’re talking with friends. To call it content is to miss why it matters to Big Content’s customers.

BigCon’s product, I said, is special. It’s published. That means it’s given over to the public for us to appropriate it, make it our own. We hum it, we quote it, we make jokes with it as a punchline, we get it wrong. We do that because it matters to us. And that’s how creative works succeed. They become ours in some sense.

Further, culture advances by our having the leeway to build on published work and incorporate it into other works. From The Star Spangled Banner to most of Disney’s feature length cartoons, that’s what we do.

So, we need the leeway, both to be able to continue as a culture, and more important from their point of view to continue to get value from what the Big Content folks produce. It’s our ability to absorb and reuse that gives their product value.

I ended by saying, perhaps too forcefully, “I’m here arguing for using this remarkable global connectedness to enable the flowering of culture the Internet seems born to provide…and you call me the barbarian?” I think it just alienated them.

I also made the stupid, self-indulgent error of saying that trying to “monetize communities” (the official topic of the session) was evil. Shoot, I’m in favor of monetizing communities. But, as the Greek doctor said, first do no harm. D’oh d’oh d’oh.

“Anybody Here From CBS” ?

admin — Thu, 23 Sep 2004 17:41:00 +0000

… asked the Chimperor with a smirk and a swagger at the joint Bush - Allawi press conference I’m watching at this moment, live on CNN. He was starting to take questions, and obviously wanted to make a point about how they didn’t get him (yet).

Excuse my language, folks, but what an arrogant asshole !

Update

Wow ! IMO, he screwed up bigtime. The Afghan army went into Najaf ?

Influmential … is that a new word, or another Bushism ?

He essentially ended the press conference in mid-sentence … you could literally see the wheels trying to turn. He realized he was getting into worse and worse trouble, and so just stopped.

Embarassing. Made one cringe and laugh to watch. I wonder how he feels in his private moments of self-honesty (although he’d be one person that I suspect might actually never have any).