Bruce Sterling's Blog

http://www.scienceplusfiction.org/edizione_e.php

Asteroide award, official jury statement:

"The winner of the Neon Concorso is a work of global animation created in Russia, Japan, and Canada: First Squad, the Moment of Truth. The jury admires the freshness, cleverness and sense of invention of this work. First Squad has meticulous attention to detail, lavish action sequences, and surprising live performances that are well-acted, well-scripted and emotionally moving. First Squad is an...

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*Given that favelas are on the march all over the world, you'd think there would be a lot more science fiction about our future life in shabby, segregated armed camps run by ethnic narcotics warlords. "Banlieu 13: Ultimatum" is a film of that description. It's one of the few recent science fiction films that would probably be a huge, popular hit in a Rio favela (if the people in there ever paid for movies as opposed to just pirating them).

*The armed, piratical dope peddlers in their future ...

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/30/business/media/30carr.html?_r=2&ref=business

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Calvinistic ideals are no match for macromedia economics that have vaporized significant components of the business model that drives traditional publishing. (((Translation: we're broke and we can't make anything pay. Merry Christmas, crisis world.)))

The most popular books of the holiday season have become cat toys in a price war between online and offline retailers. Newspapers still hang onto a portion of...

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*Well, if anybody could survive an untoward disturbance like this, it would be Italians.

*Apparently the key to surviving major tourist infestations is to feed and shelter them, while

trying to persuade them to have sex with one another, rather than anybody on the ground.

*Emotionally vulnerable Twihard fans can likely be handled by selling 'em "abstinence porn" abput particularly aloof, opaque and morally principled guys.

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*Quite a set of photos.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/nov/29/rio-drugs-war-jon-lee-anderson

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"We were walking through the favela – a mess of slapped-up houses of corrugated tin and unpainted brick, dreadlocked tangles of pilfered electrical wiring, and graffiti-covered walls and alleyways where little shops and rudimentary bars selling beer and cachaça jostled for space with storefront evangelical churches. Parque Royal is built on what used to be a mangrove swamp, and Iara's home...

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*It's nice stuff here. More like metaphor than mapping, but then again, "cyberspace" is a metaphor.

http://observatory.designobserver.com/entry.html?entry=3407

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*Gothic Gothic Gothic! All "Twilight," all the time!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/nov/26/dark-side-internet-freenet

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"The darkweb"; "the deep web"; beneath "the surface web" – the metaphors alone make the internet feel suddenly more unfathomable and mysterious. Other terms circulate among those in the know: "darknet", "invisible web", "dark address space", "murky address space", "dirty address space". Not all these phrases mean the same thing. While a "darknet" is an online...

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http://berglondon.com/blog/2009/11/26/another-science-fiction/

*It's just tremendous stuff from BERG. It's like Thomas Pynchon, Taos-style. Imagine having your entire home done over in Taos-Los Alamos Rocketry Atomchic. And you're in there reading, say, "Prima Belladonna" (1956) from the "Vermilion Sands" series by J G Ballard. You might just implode right in your sling-chair.

*It would likely be even more provocative if you refurbished your soggy, Edwardian, "Silicon Roundabout" offices ...

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*The formerly-communist, retrofitted "stuffed animal." There's half a continent covered with this stuff. It's a colossal story.

*The remarks in this article about buildings with "Polish identity" being built by offshored Polish guys who spent their lives learning architecture in the West…. Well, you know you're "glocal" when your regional identity-design exists to please guys who climb out of jets.

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*Italian cyberculture at its most cyberrific.

http://www.labforculture.org/en/content/view/full/58748

"Neural is a magazine on new media art, hacktivism and e-music that is published three times a year in English and Italian. It is complemented by its blog http://www.neural.it/, which features daily news and reviews.

"The following interview between Alessandro Ludovico and Annette Wolfsberger took place on 2 June 2009 in Rotterdam.

"What was the trigger for you to start Neural, and what format...

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