Bruce Sterling's Blog, page 679

Latest DOORS OF PERCEPTION

*Read it, and then go eat something with your food stamps…

Doors of Perception Report

by John Thackara

Who will control global urine flows?

March 2010

This free monthly newsletter starts conversations on issues to do

with design for resilience, and announces Doors of Perception events.

Subscribe/Unsubscribe: http://www.doorsofperception.com/mail...

Back issues: http://www.doorsofperception.com/mail...

**** **** **** **** ****
THIS MONTH'S HIGHLIGHTS
Food and finance- - ...

Algorithmic Culture

http://www.edge.org/documents/archive/edge313.html

(…)

Those of us involved in communicating ideas need to re-think the Internet. Here at Edge, we are not immune to such considerations. We have to ask if we're kidding ourselves by publishing 10,000+ word pieces to be read by people who are limiting themselves to 3″ ideas, i.e. the width of the screen of their iPhones and Blackberries. (((And if they're kidding THEMSELVES, what do you suppose they're doing to all those guys with the...

Austin City Hall: the Internet Service Provider

I understand and agree to comply with all of the following conditions:

I will comply with all state and federal laws and City of Austin policies and procedures.

I understand and acknowledge that the Internet contains information, both written and pictorial, which may be offensive or harmful to me or to others. (((You don't say! Boy howdy! Don't that beat all!)))

I release the City of Austin from all liabilities associated with my viewing of, use of, or exposure to any information...

Music Break: Laurie Siegel, Bell Labs synthesizer, 1977

via @andrew_zolli

Next Nature newsletter

*If you think this newsletter's great, you should see their posters.

Dear Bruce Sterling,

Welcome to a new issue of the Next Nature newsletter. This low-tech, low-volume newsletter is connected to the website http://www.nextnature.net which explores the nature caused by people.

==================================================

CONTENTS

– NANO Supermarket: Call for Products

– Blog Highlights

– Essay: Razorius Gillettus – On the origin of a Next Species

...

They unpaved paradise and put up a park.

*A park made with a zero budget out of improvised junk, apparently.

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/011003.html

World Brain: the Idea of a Permanent World Encyclopedia

https://sherlock.ischool.berkeley.edu/wells/world_brain.html

World Brain:

The Idea of a Permanent World Encyclopaedia

by H.G. Wells

Contribution to the new Encyclopédie Française, August, 1937

It is probable that the idea of an encyclopaedia may undergo very considerable extension and elaboration in the near future. Its full possibilities have still to be realized. (((And nowadays, even more so, Herbert, old man.)))

The encyclopaedias of the past have sufficed for the needs of a cultivated...

Stunned and hurt Baffler guy figures out that Swedish pirates aren't Canadian Marxists

*I sympathize with much of this guy's obvious bewilderment, but he somehow imagines that these phenomena he describes can be resolved by the just and righteous values of a Canadian teachers' union.

*I'm cool about Canadians, teachers and even unions, but thinking they can resolve the difficulties this gentleman denotes here is like imagining that "progressives" could hold their breath and make Haitian earthquakes go away.

http://www.thebaffler.com/viewArticle/121/0/1/

(…)

"Remember what pirates l...

Dark Data

*I don't even WANNA THINK ABOUT the "dark data." Which is pretty much why the dark data is there in the first place. So I don't have to think about it.

http://www.psfk.com/2009/12/our-info-hunger-dark-data.html

*I just learned the interesting if quite dubious factoid that the Fresh Kills landfill in New York is the largest single manmade structure on earth. A dump is made of small-unwanted-pieces loosely compacted. Stuff we no longer want to think about, because we threw it "away." Is...

The Steve Jackson Games Raid was 20 years ago

*And the law and disorder on the electronic frontier has gotten ever more disordered ever since. If you'd told me about the likes of the Storm Worm and the spam gangs back in those days… man oh man. "Straight from barbarity to decadence without ever encountering civilization."

*Be that as it may: I definitely plan to be at this event. Maybe we'll get raided!

http://stevejackson20.eventbrite.com/

Independence Brewing

3913 Todd Lane

#607

Austin, TX 78744

Tuesday, March 09, 2010 from 7:00 PM ...