Bruce Sterling's Blog, page 706

Information leaking in the legal system.

*Man, what a mess THAT is. There's not a prosecutor on the planet who could put together a case when the jury, the courtroom crowd and the defendant's relatives were all twittering about it on the backchannel.

*But if you deprive tomorrow's jurors of their mobiles and laptops and shut them in an airtight jury room, they won't be objectively deciding cases, they'll be so mentally mutilated that they won't be able to think or even speak aloud.

*Looks like a wicked problem.

Awesome, gorgeous 1960s French pop stars who can't even be bothered to actually exist.

*It's the way forward, atompunk fans.

*Only a professional magazine art director could pull off a stunt like this. I stand in awe.

http://www.stevenkasher.com/html/artistresults.asp?artist=383

*It'll probably take seven years before somebody invents a Sarah Palin who is much more Sarah Palin than the Sarah Palin, but having seen "Gigi Gaston," one now knows that this development is inevitable. *You betcha. *wink

Mobile walled gardens versus Internet norms

*Really a titanic invisible struggle here. People sometimes imagine that users, customers, are getting served by these gigantic business structures. Of course they're not. Thinking that users control the cellphone industry is like thinking that soccer-mom voters control international trade negotiations.

*Why do Millennials "trust institutions" so much more than previous generations? I think it may be because Millennials have seen so many insider leaks of this kind, so many excoriations of i...

The last American big-box electronic retail store left standing

*Especially ironic when the coverage here is in an American business magazine so near death.

*BEST BUY is trying to turn itself into a tech incubator and social network, which is a great high-concept,
only it's probably easier for tech incubators and social networks to set up a store these days, than it is
for a store to set up tech incubators and social networks. Given that all its competition is horribly dead, BEST BUY could turn into a shambling Gothic High Tech zombie and nobody would...

The Electric Friendship Generator

*Nice atompunk riffing here.

Arphid Watch: those wags at Verichip

*As is common with Verichip, you really kinda have to read this to believe it.

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/12/positive_id/#more-11907

Open Source Hardware 2009

*I stand in awe of the honest labor that goes into a thing like this.

http://blog.makezine.com/archive/2009/12/open_source_hardware_2009_-_the_def.html

Welcome to definitive guide to open source hardware projects in 2009. First up - What is open source hardware? These are projects in which the creators have decided to completely publish all the source, schematics, firmware, software, bill of materials, parts list, drawings and "board" files to recreate the hardware - they also allow any use...

Kalki Koechlin and her reversal mode

*Enfants du Paradis. Yeah, that's quite a film. It must be pretty amazing even when you're a young French-Indian actress in Bollywood.

http://www.dnaindia.com/entertainment/report_i-m-going-through-a-reversal-mode-says-kalki-koechlin_1321877

'I'm going through a reversal mode,' says Kalki Koechlin

Jahnavi Sanghvi / DNAWednesday, December 9, 2009 23:59 IST

Mumbai: Kalki Koechlin may have an intense on-screen image with the kind of roles she has played, but she is like any other girl who loves...

Millennials in Power

*Not this year, but next decade, you bet.

*Gotta love these Millennial kids. According to Pew Research, they're like multiracial leftist cyberpunk atheist values voters.

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1437/millennials-profile

"America's newest generation, the Millennials, is in the middle of this coming-of-age phase of its life cycle. Its oldest members are approaching age 30; its youngest are approaching adolescence.

"Who are they? How are they different from — and similar to — their parents? How ...

The all-singing, all-dancing Sarkozy cabinet

*Somehow, this performance is probably less weird than it looks. I'm trying to imagine an American equivalent for a political ad of this kind. I don't think there is one.

*However, I do think that America's pathetic romance with Sarah Palin has a great deal to do with the Sarkozy's desperate, but wondrously successful, lunge for Carla Bruni. They were two culture-war gambits by two right-wing parties, but hippie temptress Carla is somehow the picture of reassuring propriety while...