abt. quotedAnother Tsunami
An earthquake linked to a tsunami linked to a nuclear power plant disaster–and then more earthquakes. The mesh of events in Japan were not only linked to each other, but linked to things all over the world. The events raced through the network of the earth’s fault lines, through the wave forms and currents of the ocean, through the network of systems producing electric power, through the manufacturing systems with just-in-time global supply chains, through the global capital markets, through the network of luxury goods producers and retailers.
A Sudden Reversal Of Flow On The Network
That's life
To tell you the truth, even features are too big. I’d like to be completely unaware of features, and have them disappear out of my consciousness; I just want functionality and benefits. I don’t want more companies.
ReQuoting pt. 66 (The FOMO Edition)
Social media has made us even more aware of the things we are missing out on. You’re home alone, but watching your friends status updates tell of a great party happening somewhere. You are aware of more parties than ever before. And, like gym memberships, adding Bergman movies to your Netflix queue and piling up unread copies of the New Yorker, watching these feeds gives you a sense that you’re participating, not missing out, even when you are.
Caterina Fake via Kottke
Dead Can Dance
Great music wasn’t created by the first people to grab an electric guitar or a synthesizer. Great snowboarding moves didn’t come from the guy who invented the snowboard…
Bring me stuff that’s dead, please
(abt. postdeadism)
The Call
In the new radio-telephone combined medium, the Network is placing a call to you. Is that what that ringing sound is? Is that why we feel an obligation to process the overwhelming torrent of the the real-time stream? The meme of floods of information engendering paralysis and unhappiness is at its zenith. Your voice mail is full and the phone keeps ringing. All the lines in the system are ringing, impatiently waiting for you to meet your obligation.
…
The name space of the Network seems to put everything on equal footing. Everything has a unique identifier, a phone number you can call. Everything is illuminated, everything is a known known. But in fact, the reason we can’t simply place calls to satisfy our true desires is because our desires are not perfectly illuminated. We are filled with unknown knowns. How do we place a call to fill an unconscious desire? Once we’ve checked everything off our list, how is it that there’s still a longing for something more?
echovar mit einer art theorie des grossen anderen networks.
ReQuoting pt. 65 (The Politicized At Any Given Moment Edition)
The North African revolutions and remind us that citizens aren’t so much political or apolitical as they are politicized or unpoliticized at any given moment;
Shirky via Techdirt.
(dieser gedanke, ggf. mit dem mitdenken der vorhandenen technosozialen mittel und des mileus, würde dann auch den großteil der teils doch sehr skurrilen verwunderung ob des plötzlichen auftauchens der proguttenbergers entwundern; die meisten beiträge haben sich leider in hierarchischen oder kausalbeziehungen verwurstelt, was den intensitäten, aufladungen und umschichtungen in keinster weise entsprach)
ReQuoting pt. 64 (The Shut Up Edition)
The correct answer is: shut up.
Jay Shepherd via Techdirt
The Point
So here’s my question: Does what you’re doing have a point — one that matters to people, society, nature, and the future?
Sisters of No Mercy
Now, people can believe what they want about technology, misguided as their views might be. But in one group, it is unforgivable: the news media. It’s tough to find any large news organizations that don’t turn technology into the star villain of every story in which it is even tangentially related—and they aren’t afraid to misrepresent the facts to do so. This highlights several broad cultural problems that plague modern journalism: lazy reporting, pandering to viewers instead of educating them, and an internal techno-panic attitude among journalists and publishers who are failing to adapt to a changing marketplace.
Techno-Panic Reporting: The Media Deserves No Mercy
ReQuoting pt. 63 (The Barb Wire Edition)
Empires built on barbed wire inevitably collapse, and the sooner the better; while this one reigns, it perpetuates yesterday’s regimes, and squelches innovation and progress. Is piracy wrong? Yes, but that’s the wrong question. The right question is, which is worse: widespread piracy, or the endless and futile attempt to preserve DRM everywhere?
Jon Evans via Techdirt
(die stacheldraht-metapher funktioniert dabei nicht nur beim literalen vergleich mit drm, sondern auch schon auf der ebene der attitude. es reicht also schon aus, wenn man sich einen stacheldraht wünscht oder sieht, wo es ohnehin schon keinen mehr gibt, weil sie einen blind für das macht, was passiert. exemplarisch konnte man das ja gerade an der verschiebung der ‘leitmedien’ beobachten, was die berichterstattung der revolution in ägypten betrifft. al jazeera ist zwar sicher nicht aus dem nichts aufgetaucht, aber der grad an interpretationshegemonie war dann doch erstaunlich. sie hatten nicht nur einfach mit dem ‘produkt’ auf allen ebenen einen vorsprung – zeitlich, volumen, fokus, qualität der sprecher und gäste, differenziertheit und schärfe der kritik, usw. -, sie waren mit ihrem produkt auch noch live (streams im web und als app), vernetzt (blogs und twitter von allen journalisten und offiziell) und offen (cc-lizenzierung der videos). nix besonderes, aber gut genug. und diese mischung aus besser (produkt) und gut genug (social media) hat durch die vernetzte koppelung bewirkt, dass alle anderen nur noch in der staubspur von al jazeera wahrnehmbar waren.)
RDD Revolutions
But the fact that other revolutions used other tools does not mean that the tools used today aren’t instrumental, and doesn’t mean that the inherent character of today’s tools — real-time, distributed, decentralized — hasn’t had a major impact on the movements it supports.
Stowe Boyd recht pragmatisch zu/gegen Gladwells jüngstes Twitter/das Medium hat nix mit Revolution zu tun. (via)
(bei solchen fragen unterscheidungen – sehen wir gerade eine twitter-revolution oder nicht?? – muss ich immer an kk’s grundannahme bzgl. der dann grundsätzlich als positiv zu bewertenden entwicklung der technik denken, also dass technik gutes wie schlechtes bringt, dass aber die möglichkeit der entscheidung für das eine oder andere selbst die waage dann zum guten ausschlagen lässt, nur umgekehrt, dass also die fragestellung selbst schon alles verunmöglicht usw.)
ReQuoting pt. 62 (The MyReallySimple Etc Edition)
My. ReallySimple etc etc
Dave Winer via webmonkey
In and out
That’s one of the most important decisions you’ll make today.
ReQuoting pt. 61 (The Hideously Complex Edition)
do as few extremely time-consuming features as possible. As a result, Instapaper is a collection of a bunch of very easy things and only a handful of semi-hard things.
Marco Arment via Rands in Repose viavia chl
ReQuoting pt. 60 (The Insane in the Membrane Edition)
“There’s no such thing as ‘secure’ any more,” she said to the attendees of a cyber security forum sponsored by the Atlantic and Government Executive media organizations, and confirmed that the NSA works under the assumption that various parts of their systems have already been compromised, and is adjusting its actions accordingly.
Deborah Plunkett, head of the NSA’s Information Assurance Directorate, via echovar.
Event Horizon
Infinity takes the form of too much stuff. The web seems to have so much stuff, that finding your stuff amongst all the stuff is becoming a problem. The dilution of the web with stuff that’s not your stuff decreases the web’s value. Any random sample of the web will likely contain less and less of your stuff.
…
When considering human scales, the farthest point we can apprehend is the horizon. The line that separates earth from sky provides a limit within which a sense of human finitude is defined. […] Once the curvature of a spherical earth entered our thinking, we understood there was something — more earth — beyond the horizon.
echovar über den übergang von endlicher zu unendlicher information usw.
Data Walk With Me
And with the possible exception of Flickr (better now than the day Yahoo bought it), I can’t think of any online community or publication that has improved as a result of being purchased. Whereas we can all instantly call to mind dozens of wonderful web properties that died or crawled up their own asses as a direct result of new corporate ownership.
..
Stop selling your stuff to corporate jerks. It never works. They always wreck what you’ve spent years making. Don’t go for the quick payoff. You can make money maintaining your content and serving your community.
Zeldman mit einigen guten Anmerkungen zur Dialektik zwischen Intensität und Sachherrschaft. (via)
(minianmerkung am rande: auf ihn trifft es hier nicht zu, aber die überwiegende mehrzahl aller texte/überlegungen zu diesem thema trifft eine unterscheidung nicht, die die gesamte diskussion nicht nur erleichtern, sondern wohl auch tatsächlich verbessern könnte, und zwar die reformatierung der problemstellung unter der annahme, dass das vom einzelnen selbst zumutbar machbare vom einzelnen auch gemacht wird, wenn es ihm wichtig ist. der gordischer knoten, der hypertrophe lösungsprozesse triggert, würde zerlegt in einen sachverhalt – der erlernt werden kann, den man in selbstverantwortung anwenden kann – und einen (teilweise sicher auch symptomatischen) rest, in dem die eigentliche problemstellung liegt.)
Strange Requirements
There are no strange requirements — passwords just need to be at least 1 character.
ReQuoting pt. 59 (The Pravda Edition)
It is the American people who should be outraged that its government has transformed a nation with a reputation for freedom, justice, tolerance and respect for human rights into a backwater that revels in its criminality, cover-ups, injustices and hypocrisies.
Die Pravda via Techdirt.
bonustweet:
geschäft der #diplomatie ist das management von gewalt, tyrannei, asymmetrischer wirtschaft. das gegenteil von "welt verbessern". #wikileaks
— Martin Lindner (@martinlindner) December 6, 2010bonusquote:
The key, though, is that democracies have a process for creating such restrictions, and as a citizen it sickens me to see the US trying to take shortcuts. The leaders of Myanmar and Belarus, or Thailand and Russia, can now rightly say to us “You went after Wikileaks’ domain name, their hosting provider, and even denied your citizens the ability to register protest through donations, all without a warrant and all targeting overseas entities, simply because you decided you don’t like the site. If that’s the way governments get to behave, we can live with that.”
The Last Bit
Once you overload the user, you train them not to pay attention. More clutter isn’t free. In fact, more clutter is a permanent shift, a desensitization to all the information, not just the last bit.
Seth Godin über den infoökonomischen Totalausfall, der durch zu viel Clutter getriggert wird.