Bruce Sterling's Blog, page 711

Augmented Reality: Bamzooki

*Got a mainstream TV / AR hybrid here. Good write-up on Thomas Carpenter's blog: "Robots battling it out for glory is nothing new. Augmented reality robots racing around real streets and battling on rooftops is so 2010…."

http://thomaskcarpenter.com/2009/11/29/bamzooki-augmented-reality-tv-game-show/

The European Federation of Fantastic Film Festivals

*There's a whole continental ecosystem of these sci-fi/fantasy/horror media fen. It's the European model.

http://www.melies.org/

*And they have an Austin allied contingent, a fact which slays me. Way to go, Austin. "Brussels on the Colorado."

http://www.fantasticfest.com/

Science Plus Fiction 09, the award winners

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...

Banlieue 13: favela sci-fi

*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 ...

Dead Media Beat: all traditional media

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

(…)

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...

Plague of vampire fans saturates hapless small Italian town

*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.

We were walking through the favela

*Quite a set of photos.

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

(…)

"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...

Mapping of cyberspace

*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

The Dark Web

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

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

(…)

"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...

Another Science Fiction: An Intersection of Art and Technology in the Early Space Race

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 ...