Bruce Sterling's Blog, page 687

Zero as a moral value

http://www.worldchanging.com/archives/007879.html

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"Of course, we may prove ourselves to be an evil and criminally shortsighted generation. We may melt the 'caps, log the Congo, burn the Amazon, slushie the tundra, acidify the ocean, drive half of all life into extinction and needlessly cause the deaths of billions of our fellow human beings. But I don't think we will. I think enough of us are better than that, braver than that and bolder than that.

"Which means that we have to stop...

Old home week for the Bollywood Beautiful People

*This is some kind of semi-pro vernacular-video emanation to promote a charity calendar for 2010. It struck me in watching this ditzy YouTube fodder that Bollywood stars are a small, tight community — because, to my vague alarm, I know every person in this video. Really. I do. Worse yet, I know all kinds of alarming Twitter-like personal details about them now, like, when they go to the gym, and when they get new haircuts, and when they catch a cold, and if they are being ludicrously...

Academic, uhm, sort of piracy

*Fair use. For several thousand people at once.

http://mastersofmedia.hum.uva.nl/2010/01/05/small-is-beautiful-a-discussion-with-aaaarg-architect-sean-dockray/

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I wrote an email one day that said this:

"Are you looking for a specific out-of-print or otherwise difficult-to-find text? Respond to this email by June 21 with your request…AAAARG will then compile all of the requests into one batch, send it out to the mailing list and – hopefully – some one of the 3300+ subscribers will be able...

Let me lie quiet in that night that shall be yours anon

"I hope we have learned something from the most barbaric century in history"

A RepRap printing in clay.

*Uh-oh. via @openMaterials

http://unfoldfab.blogspot.com/2010/02/futures-here-baby-first-successfully.html

The Aman ki Asha charm offensive

http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/india/100111/bollywood-indo-pak-relationship

*Okay, maybe it's not that much of an article — nothing too startling there — but that accompanying photo must be the coolest graphic signifier for Indian soft-power that I've ever seen. Wow.

WIRED magazine forgeries on the loose

*I wonder if these "shopdropping" pranksters get it that newsstand sales are not necessarily all that strong for glossy tech magazines. You could go to all the trouble to fake WIRED, with all kinds of "subversive" genius crammed in there, and it could easily just get dumped out the back door.

*Alternately, the fake WIRED issues might get bought by some schmoe who can't even tell the difference.

*I like it that these WIRED hackers take tremendous effort to obscure their identities, as if a...

Limor Fried, fashion model

*I don't wanna come across all "Computer Engineer Barbie" here, but Limor "Lady Ada" Fried, the geekiest chick in homemade electronics, looks kinda hot in her new Silicon Atomic Emission Spectrum scarf. Check that out:

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2010/02/atomic_emission_spectrum_scarf.html

*Limor is so hot that she appears able to melt snowdrifts with her bare arms.

When the Global Hit Squad Shows Up on Surveillance Video

*Boy, that's some kinda story. Look at all those smiling, husky Gen-X guys who seem to lack criminal records or even actual legal existences. And who got away more or less clean after icing the Hamas guy, despite the passport checks and the swarms of cameras.

*And they (and the cute blonde female accomplice) smothered this dodgy terrorist victim to death after electrocuting him for ten minutes? Gee whiz, what happened to those nice clean long-distance Predator drones?

The Five Billion of 2010

*Well, so much for the "digital divide." It's gone like parachute pants. via @textually

http://www.itu.int/newsroom/press_releases/2010/06.html

ITU sees 5 billion mobile subscriptions globally in 2010

Strong global mobile cellular growth predicted across all regions and all major markets

Barcelona, 15 February 2010 — After reaching around 4.6 billion mobile cellular subscriptions by the end of 2009, ITU expects the number of mobile cellular subscriptions globally to reach five billion in 2010, ...