The net neutrality debate rolls on, with little easy access to untainted fact for us, the end-users. While the record industry understandably wants peer-to-peer file-sharing brought to an end because it’s chewing the hell out of their previously lucrative business-model, ISPs have a different argument - they say it’s choking the net to beyond capacity.
Of course, they’re not willing to show us their calculations by way of proof, and all the other reports into the matter seem to come with the tang of dishonesty or the smell of FUD and vested interests. Perhaps they’re telling the truth, and traffic-shaping really is a necessity … but I’m fond of documentary evidence, myself. [image by jef safi]
This is one of those awesome videos that really makes the internet amazing. Clay Shirky, author of ‘Here Comes Everybody’, talks at the Web 2.0 Conference earlier this month in the video above. You can also read a text version on his website. It’s been going around most of the blogs for good reason - it’s a brilliant analysis of how until recently we’ve been denying the free time modern life gives us with television and how the internet is beginning to use that untapped free time and mental creativity.
Ooh, this combines two of my favorite things: languages and the future. John Scalzi’s grammar bitch of the day (granted, that day was a while ago) touches on one of those small spelling differences, specifically ‘alright’ vs ‘all right’. While I disagree with Mr. Scalzi on this point (’alright’ is usable as that Lichtenstein art he has up, though I’d ask somebody “Are you all right?”), it’s something to think about when discussing the differences between English spellings. I’ve spent all day today trying to explain to Japanese eight-year-olds why I say “zee” and my co-worker says “zed.”
Garance wonders if the proliferation of an unedited Internet might not bring about a return to the writings of previous centuries, when men wore hose and words were spelled phonetically:
As blogs move us into a less heavily copy-edited world, I sometimes wonder if we’re moving back into a more 16th and 17th century form of writing, where the idea of correct spelling was less important than the communication of meaning — which, in reality, can be accomplished just as well with incorrectly spelled words and homonyms as with a more perfect language. And also: as we move ever deeper into this new world of speech-like writing, will the perfect, formal language of the page one day seem as antique and elaborate as Victorian silverware?
What say you all? I’m a stickler for spelling and grammar (though I muck it up a fair bit), but I can definitely see a return to a more homonymic age. (funny, lowercase ‘internet’ doesn’t pass my spellchecker, but ‘homonymic’ does just fine)
It’s impressive how far new media has come and how important it is becoming in all parts of modern life. In addition to the myriad of blogs, news sites and internet radio stations contributing to the discussion of pretty much anything from politics to skateboarding, we have the emergence of the online video.
If you’re familiar with Morgan’s books, you’ll know not to expect rose-tinted panglossian speculation from him. I’ll freely admit that I get carried away with techno-utopian visions from time to time, and it’s good to have writers with Morgan’s incisive intelligence to bring me down to earth:
“The future of the internet, then, is not going to be too much of a shock for anyone who knows much about human nature and whose eyes are open. In fact, regardless of the technical innovations that we may or may not see in the next few decades, virtual reality looks as if it’s going to conform pretty ordinarily to the existing human tendencies we so know and love.”
Coincidences happen. Synchronicity is a function of the inherent human propensity for seeing patterns in an essentially random world.
Seriously, I got over the whole conspiracy theory thing years ago (and, funnily enough, it was reading The Illuminatus! Trilogy that inoculated me against it), but I’m still kind of fascinated by the process of conspiracy theories - the inevitability of how they appear wherever there is a chain of events and a vacuum of facts surrounding them. Where we can’t see causality, we create it - from whole cloth if necessary. [Image by Ford - or should that be Fnord?]
So, what’s going on? Official story - shipping anchors and power failures. Obvious conspiracist conclusion - ZOMFG clandestine operations!!1! I think we can all agree that the latter is unlikely (though sadly all too easy to believe), and that the former seems too simple to be true - even if it actually is*.
Now, leaving aside the question of what’s actually happening (which no amount of internet debate is going to determine), let’s try to answer another question - are conspiracy theories an inevitability in complex societies where it’s impossible for everyone to know everything? Or will the increasingly connected nature of the world slowly shine a light into all the dark corners where these ambiguities hide?
[* So don't call Occam's Razor on me, I'm not claiming anything either way; just highlighting ambiguity for the sake of debate. Play nice.]
When the first cyberpunk writers picked up their pens in the eighties and wrote about conflict acted out over computer networks, it seemed like a lifetime away. In recent years we’ve seen internet attacks on Estoniaand on power infrastructure. Countless griefers, hackers and virus-creators have found a way to virtually attack others.
Interestingly, much of the content of the six-hour, 44 part series is not devoted to proving whether global warming is happening or not, or whether man is causing it or not. He looks instead at the four main outcomes: global warming exists and we do something, it exists and we don’t do something, it doesn’t exist and we do nothing or it doesn’t exist and we do something. He concluded the costs of doing nothing far outweigh the cost of doing something, so it makes sense to take action even if we don’t know whether global warming is happening or not.
The FBI swooped into a house in Rockwall, Texas when it emerged a gamer and physicist enthusiast was trying to create a small nuclear reaction in his house using Uranium.
It just goes to show how the internet helps to spread information - the man learnt how to make the mini nuclear reactor using online resources and then the FBI learned he was doing it via his online blog posts about his house doubling in radioactivity.
“A few years back, I asked this question to someone who worked in the world of web ads and I received a snarky (and condescending) answer: middle America.”
“Who are these “heavy clickers”? They are predominantly female, indexing at a rate almost double the male population. They are older. They are predominantly Midwesterners, with some concentrations in Mid-Atlantic States and in New England. What kinds of content do they like to view when they are on the Web? Not surprisingly, they look at sweepstakes far more than any other kind of content. Yes, these are the same people that tend to open direct mail and love to talk to telemarketers.”
Which leaves Ms Boyd asking questions about the ethics of advertising:
“I am not an advertiser and I’m not invested in making better ads. Instead, by raising this topic, I’m curious whether or not web marketing is capitalizing on a niche group and, if so, what the societal implications of this might be? If my hypothesis were true, what would it mean if marketing is profiting primarily off of those who are economically and socially struggling? How do we feel about this philosophically, ethically, and professionally? Would we feel proud of living off of a business model that targets the poor?”
It’s an interesting question - but I’m left wondering whether it’s really any different from the non-web ad industry. Hasn’t advertising always been designed to bamboozle the easily-led? But to extend Ms Boyd’s thoughts further, as the web moves inevitably towards being funded entirely by advertising, will it become the victim of its own success? [Via SmartMobs] [Image by Michale]
Since 2002, the Wireless World Initiative (WWI) has been working on a number of user-centric wireless systems that integrate what is currently an extremely disjointed mess of networks and protocols. The five systems - SPICE, MobiLife, WINNER, E2R and Ambient Networks aim to provide a seamless wireless system that connects up all of a user’s gadgets and software in an integrated configuration that doesn’t impact on the usability for the user.
Science Daily has a good article on what ‘Bob the builder’ and ‘Bob the businessman’ might use this new technology for.
Google has announced a new wikipedia-like project, entitled ‘knol’. Short for knowledge, the project aims to have an encyclopedia type experience but with more emphasis on the author, rather than anonymous multiple contributors. There will not be editorial contributions from Google, but authors including ads will get revenue.
“What has happened to us is an amazing invention - computers and the internet and TV. It is a revolution. This is not the first revolution the human race has dealt with. The printing revolution, which did not take place in a matter of a few decades, but took much longer, transformed our minds and ways of thinking. A foolhardy lot, we accepted it all, as we always do, never asked: “What is going to happen to us now, with this invention of print?” In the same way, we never thought to ask, “How will our lives, our way of thinking, be changed by the internet, which has seduced a whole generation with its inanities so that even quite reasonable people will confess that, once they are hooked, it is hard to cut free, and they may find a whole day has passed in blogging etc?” “
Mrs Lessing is hardly the first to raise this argument (or something similar), but her current position in the spotlight means that it once again becomes the topic du jour of bookish folk.
I think it’s reasonable of me to assume that Futurismic’s readership is fairly bookish, but it is also plain that they engage closely with the web as well. So what do you think of Lessing’s speech? I think we can all agree that the internet is a revolution, but is it the sort of revolution that burns the fields behind it?
The net neutrality debate rolls on, with little easy access to untainted fact for us, the end-users. While the record industry understandably wants peer-to-peer file-sharing brought to an end because it’s chewing the hell out of their previously lucrative business-model, ISPs have a different argument - they say it’s choking the net to beyond capacity.
A mix of two stories about completely different types of Black Holes today. 
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