Re: nettime The Arpanet Dialogues Vol. II
From the paranoid bench: is there any independent evidence that this is not a
hoax?
These are mind-boggling documents. In the first one, in 1975, Ronald
Reagan ('call me Ron'), Marcel Broodthears, Edward Said sitting in
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Re: nettime Wisconsin report
was only 3 generations ago that 3% of the population died in a major internecine war. 3% ?? You call that a war? QED. # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Re: nettime The end of the end
True, and talking heads on CNN are far fatter and uglier than their Al Jazeera counterparts, in pretty much the same fashion the three networks had uglier anchors than CNN when CNN started. Thus, it's perhaps only now that the 20th century is truly over. How fitting it is, that this event is broadcasted not by CNN but by Al-Jazeera. # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Re: nettime The Deleuzian Philosophy of Julian Assange
On of the entertaining aspects of the Shannon's theory is that a closed system cannot explain itself. This is why the emergence of novel entities (such as WL-JA subsystem) is interesting - it gives a brief hope that there is an outside observer that will tell us what the f*ck is going on (not in the sense of actual events that WL exposes, but about the dynamics of the society.) Is WL-JA the Outsider, and how long will it be the Outsider? I think yes, and I'd say 2-6 months. Enjoy while it lasts. As already shown, Assange borrows heavily from the information sciences - more specifically, cognitive neuroscience and computer science. This is extremely interesting because this leads his philosophy to resemble certain contemporary post-structural philosophies – most specifically, that of the 20th century French philosopher Gilles Deleuze. # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Re: nettime Steve Coll: Leaks (The New Yorker)
If we look into the mechanics of media, then WL is the reverse. Most of the discussion here is centered on the corruptibility of the media itself. Media being something between the physical event and incidental listeners, consisting of interpretation and transmission. No one could provide solid explanation why would interpreters and transmitters be unbiased, why wouldn't they be on the take, what would be the magical incentive to maintain fidelity to the event. The hint is some form of altruism (which John Young perfectly described without ever mentioning it), but we know what happens when capitalism meets altruism. WL is shortcircuiting the loop. They provide data which was not there before. Yes, they pick and choose and wrap, but it's still source data. The masses are puzzled and look to their interpreters to read the data, as that's what they are conditioned to do. The interpreters are confused as they're accustomed to being barriers between the data and the public. This is the fundamental un-media aspect of WL. Even among the washed on this list - how many did actually sift through megabytes of source information? This is painful. We want interpretation. This is new. This is the most important aspect of WL. Raw bits. It is concievable that instruments for handling raw data will develop, not in the form of media but in the form of local tools and collaborative efforts to make sense of these bits. It may take years, but if I were entering college, I wouldn't bother about journalism. It's over. is hard to come by these days. Still, in terms of the tactical media that once facinated and inspired us on this list, Wikileaks is a big big innovation, far more interesting than anything else that could possibly be termed tactical media in recent years. It # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Re: nettime wikilazy arguing (was: The Return of DRM)
Not really. WL is an expression of technology. Actors, motives and philosophies are incidental. It's a great example how technology shapes everything - from ethics to politics and all in-between. In this particular case, the infrastructure for low-cost broadcasting (essential for consumerism) met infrastructure for secure communications (essential for maintaining the concept of property) and we have unintended consequences. The insiders didn't change, they just assessed risks as becoming acceptably low. This is what DoD is, correctly, after: to re-instill the fear of God into insiders. form of cyborg than the remote control basher) don't you think that those (wiki)leaks are the signal of an ethical transformation in that insider sphere of intelligence? after all, they come right from there and, from what i can perceive so far, can be seen by insiders as an interesting if not even positive phenomenon. # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Re: nettime Google in China, RIM in Saudi Arabia
Wikileaks, anyone ... ? From what I understand, China has renewed Google commercial license for another year or two, though it remains unclear under which conditions. This seems to indicate that the government got # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Re: nettime The Return of DRM
Whether Wikileaks is an example of successful asymetrical warfare remains to be seen. The state appears confident that the sufficient percentage of relevant population has been converted to zombies. See the intelligence-insulting rhetoric from the highest places, and imagine who it is targeted to. In that light, revelations of any kind become irrelevant. The free speech exists in principalities where media control is sophisticated enough that individual free speech is harmless. Something similar may happen with astonishing revelations. They will become harmless, because the apparatus of population control is sophisticated enough. We see an example of this with executive's impunity - what Nixon got impeached for, modern execs routinely do on a weekly basis, not even hiding it. The fact that secrets that Wikileaks revealed were available to (hundreds of) thousands insiders hints that the state does not care about keeping them secret. Is this just arrogance or confidence in the mechanisms of power is not quite clear, but if I had to bet I'd bet on latter: the relevant percentage of population may continue to support the war, because it's the Right Thing, without further argumentation, and soon everyone will know everything and it will not change anything. Wikileaks will become mainstream and proof of democracy in the first world, and the wars will go on, just because. After all, the war is just business, and the current wars are very successful businesses, which is why they go on. Of course someone had to help Taliban, otherwise the war would become unsustainable. Check out Catch-22 some time. stopped arguing. Meanwhile, Wikileaks is indeed the best thing to look at, if you like to understand more. 'nuff said. # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Re: nettime alt.religion.artworld
The reasons are probably far more mundane and purely economic. The art until then were simply items conveniently shaped and packaged for selling and owning, and proving, ie. certificating originality. Once the new ever growing crop of, ehm, artists, figured out that their chances of selling is once in a blue moon, the need for packaging went away. Now, it seems to me that much of the conceptual art was actually the response to this island. And to do this response, conceptual # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Re: nettime Autonomy and Control in the Era of Post-Privacy
There are two premises which appear to be ignored: 1. ownership of the wire. While most people do actually own their synapses, very few own the physical links that support assisted communication. It's easy to forget this, but if you've ever sat at the other side of log acquisition and content filtering whether in corporate or government sector, you'll never think of the Networked World as of anything else as an experimental ant colony where you get to define the ground rules. This is important in a purely entropy (or originality) creation sense: today there are orders of magnitude fewer creators of the mental landscape, compared to the times when one could sit processing a small amount of data gathered during the day with own wetware. Think of this as braincycles/bit of data ratio. It has changed. Society is going back to mainframe computing. 2. Number of data sources. With increased connectivity, ratio of cumulative braincycles/data source has dramatically increased for those who get to publish. As number of braincycles is limited, this necessarily depletes processing services for other. less popular data sources. Sort of DoS attack (not even DDoS). This in turn, results in increased homogenization of the thinking and monoculture that everyone bitches about. Why are these two points important? Because affecting one or both is the only way to introduce a change. # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Re: nettime The Return of DRM
I got few private cheers, but you are correct - any real discourse is gone from nettime. Few polite proclamations, news items from newager/treehugger/antiglobalist/neocommunist arenas, and that's it. Everything is so polite and acceptable. ARGUE WITH ME, FUCKERS! Now that I got that off my chest ... right. all national TV stations are well guarded; but still, some of us are working in those structures of control! most probably because of their skills are becoming crucial to the task, rather than because of some long term social engineering we would be playing... working in those structures of control == being those structures of control Do not underestimate the ability of the system to subvert. I think that, analogous to my prposition that technology caught up with behaviour, that systems also caught up with individuals. As units, we are pretty much same as we were thousands of years ago. You only have your lifetime to upgrade yourself. Societal systems evolve slower, but they have limitless mermories, or the state in automata theory. It is only question of time when will the slowly evolving system with continuous memory overtake human in terms of outsmarting each other. Maybe we are not there yet, but we're close. It's not AI that will create dystopia. It's the society itself once it matures enough. now it is quite naive of you to say that: ignoring the power of asymmetrical warfare in contrast to the enthropy pulling out of unidirectional technical advancements. Can you give me *one* example of effective asymmetrical warfare in socio-cultural arena? I don't see anything that even slowed down the invasion of consummerism and liberal capitalism. Don't get me wrong, I am not labelling either as bad or good. Just effective and without competition. contrary to popular perception these days, we are not in such a bad historical moment for digital cultures: most post-modern critics drop I can't begin to understand what would 'digital culture' mean. If you refer to the current prevailing implementations of communication technology, does it make 19th century a 'cellulose culture'? What do have bit carriers to do with culture designations? Why would that attribute be important? Forming armies of mechanical turks is just a desperate preemptive attack driven by the rusty corporate juggernaut before the real battle starts: while they've played all their cards, we have prepared a little but diverse and effective arsenal, which still has to enter play. Have you seen what happens when Indiana Jones meets ninja with knifes? do we really need all that? maybe when we talk about digitally autonomous networks we speak about two different notions of digital. a piece of paper with an address and a meeting time can be even more digital than a twit - and less traceable. OK, so let's imagine a network of highly motivated conspirators; let's imagine that they have opaque communications channels; let's imagine that they have years to prepare. What are they preparing for? What is the output? We are assuming here that they will influence someone outside the group (unlike being on nettime.) Is it purely informational, like they will tell the world something? Or is it something else, physical? Secret communications do not help when you are stashing something more than ideas. You do need technology, otherwise you're stuck with cargo cult rebellions: if we throw bricks here, then torch some cars there, then vote a bit, it will happen! No it won't. of course! I'm totally into that, living life as an hobby! :) Professionals can do it cheaper and in less time. # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Re: nettime The Return of DRM
The idea that what we have on our hands is a nameless self-emergent system which no one controls, which just happened to spring into the existence as such, almost like a weak nuclear force, is an old one (I'm waiting for a new Unified theory - gravity, strong weak force, electromagnetism, consumerism.) Looking for an agent there makes one a primitive superstitious retard, right? Equating systems of control with natural forces works. Remember God? I mean, you can't fuck with the God. You better obey. The argument that consumers make choices and therefore are responsible for everything is along these lines - you masturbate, a kitten dies. But how can you pose any sense of individual agency if you posit the sort of almight you propose that 'the Inquisition' had? # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Re: nettime The Return of DRM
They do matter, and this is why: imposed/conditoned behaviours, manufactured desires, data collected, patterns discovered and exploited - all these are controlled by a very few and affect many, and those many affect everyone else. I don't see any GNU people collecting patterns and tracking end users in order to deploy those insights into spreading the GNU-deology. No, they do it 1:1, in a grassroots way, preaching to the choir, ensuring own irrelevance. You don't need to agree with or believe in social engineering on a massive scale to be affected by it, any more than you need to believe in or agree with firearms in order to be shot. You can not be a comfortable atheist in the land of religious zealots on remote control, which is what iphone rubbing 'tards are. Their attention is captured and tamed, and monitored for deviation (the Inquisition was a very expensive and inefficient way of ensuring compliance.) do we really care about helping the powerless tards rubbing iphones you talk about? they are happy, they have nothing to hide and can # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Re: nettime The Return of DRM
The overlooked issue is that understanding is unavoidable ingredient of freedom, so if the technology is involved, then understanding of the technology is essential for maintaining one's freedom. This is why technology is so appealing instrument of the centralized power - very few can get it. Piling engineers works better than piling firearms. This understanding is not easily transferable, it must be acquired. Zillions of 'tards rubbing their iphones or socializing via http are not informed technology users - they are products tethered to their manufacturers via complicated chains of deceptions. Comparing this with early Internet is pointless - those were highly educated, creative and intelligent early adopters, and today those same people have all the privacy and freedom they want. The problem is that the unwashed came and populated the space. No amount of activism will help them, because they cannot (afford to) understand the technology, and you cannot help the illiterates. The truth is that the high tech finally provided true Darwinian mechanism to separate haves and have nots, unlike anything in the recent history; for the first time the lack of technological skills and education (or membership in the ruling class, but that doesn't concern anyone here on nettime) unconditionally makes one a slave. It's a long way from the time when one had to be just literate - today you need to know how not to leave unencrypted footsteps in your daily routine, who facebook sells your data to and how will that affect you and your town, and where to find quality content bits to keep your brain functional. The rest are fucked. I don't see this changing any time soon, especially as most members of this elite like the benefits. # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Re: nettime The Return of DRM
The point is that the corporate operators from Palo Alto had insight into this trend and the following action as it happened, and full ability to influence it, and do some lead nurturing for future events. They didn't, because they are good people. They are such good people that they wouldn't do it even if some other trend with dire consequences for them, their handlers/investors, others in the money chain and within power structures around Palo Alto, California and US. This time, some students managed to mobilize several thousand people, mainly through facebook, to protest in the street against the neo-nazi candidate very early in the campaign. This contributed to her looking really old and stuck in the past. The veneer of the party of the young was damaged and she did badly at election day (there were many other factors contributing to her poor showing, of course.) So, all in all, fb played a positive role here. # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Re: nettime Handoko Suwono: Facebook paves its way to IPO
The Facebook corporation invested significant resources in attracting hapless individuals with no life to speak of to interact with each other by punching keyboards and watching the screen, while conveniently getting exposed to advertising. This provided the said individuals with certain purpose and meaning of life. If they spend, on average, 15 minutes per day on Facebook, that's 1.6% of their waking life. I think that 1.6% of purpose for existence is worth something, and as you didn't pay for it, there are absolutely no ethical nor moral grounds to complain about Facebook monetizing its service. You franchised your 1.6% of the purpose, you need to pay the franchise license. In some way. Looking the other way, 1.6% of 65 million active users is about 1 million. This is fantastic - Facebook provides 1 million full-fledged meanings of life! I cannot think of a comparable entity that does this today, save certain religions in certain parts of Texas and Utah. And they charge far more. If this was too indirect, let me spell it out - if you are so pathetic that a web site has any significance in your life, then you should be exploited to the hilt, in the hope that you'll fail to procreate and eventually leave the gene pool. In short, actually we the facebook users are working for the company or its owner by getting more friends acquainted and accounted as new recruited facebook users. # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Re: nettime Google officially released the open source code for its Chrome OS, an operating system
Instead of the tirade about the braindeads giving corporations full control of their underwear (including the enclosed dicks and pussies), I'll point to something perhaps more obvious which is missing. There are indeed advantages of the professional maintenace of storage and application-space. Backup, conformance, availability. However: 1. While remotely encrypted file systems are well established and developed concept, not a single thin-client peddler offers these. In short, the remote storage operator would not be able to read your data. It is decrypted and processed locally (applications also come from the remote storage.) The implementations already exist and would be trivial for Google, Inc. and others to offer. They are not offering those because they want access to your data. This is how you pay them. 2. There needs to be a standard for remote storage if we are to trust our private data to remote keepers. If I can replace a Seagate disk with a Winchester disk drive, I should be able to replace a remote repository. Because I don't ever want my computer to tell me if you don't want to stick with Seagate, you'll have to pay. It doesn't matter if it's Google or hundreds or service providers that hold my data. There is no such standard. On the contrary, each provider goes through pains to make sure you cannot jump the boat. The only standard that these service providers agreed on is how to leave you with nothing (thin web client) and lock you in while holding your data. Of course, the argument is convenience, and it appears to work with single-digit IQs (huge market.) In short, this is about taking away the last thing you really control today and they still don't have - bits on your disk drives. The only thing you will have left is conditional shared access to your own data and pay-as-you-go use of your memories. I can totally see governments having wet dreams along these lines. All its apps are Web apps, and all the data you save using it is stored in the cloud, in a state of statelessness, as Google puts it. Very little data is actually saved on the computer's hard drive. # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Re: nettime Twitter revolutionaries, unmade in the USA
One more reason to do proper communications setup. The point I was making is the lack of the awareness about the obvious, not just in general population but among those who should know better. Recalling the Enigma history, it is quite possible that the snitch story is there to mask the ubiquitous packet tracking. Continued relaxed use of snoopable channels is far more valuable than protecting few snitches. traced by the technology used to communicate, it is far more likely they are identified by spies placed among the fighters and then conceal the technology tracking used in order to conceal the inside betrayal. # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Re: nettime Twitter revolutionaries, unmade in the USA
They were not caught because of scanners; they were either busted thanks to twitter source tracing (or motel staff reporting CCC on their facilities - but this would imply improbable competence of the police groundwork.) Failing to separate in space and via secure links the radio pickup points from the twitter packet injection points (which could happen in comfort in Alaska or Bangalore, for example) is the gross incompetence/stupidity I was referring to. And this is the best illustration of governments winning the dumbification campaign. The mere idea that sending twitter packets is any different from firing LOOK WE ARE HERE flares is stupefying. Well, being that they were using radio scanners in their work, it was necessary to be near the festivities. I'd say hiding out in a motel room is the best one can do with all that gear and the requirement of being within range of the responder communications. Their work was probably quite useful to the cause of the protestors. So again, this reinforces my previous point on the value of these services in organizing. # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Re: nettime Twitter revolutionaries, unmade in the USA
Plain curiosity: did these people never learn the Importance of Not Being Seen, or was their shtick calculated to result in the bust and related press coverage? Gross incompetence or a PR stunt? If latter, I hope someone had a camera rolling. # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Re: nettime Has Facebook superseded Nettime?
This is the core issue - motivation. Is there a motivation besides being the alternative-big-thing? All proposals I've seen so far do center around the same paradigm already deployed ad nauseam by Friendster, MySpace, Facebook ... they just want to be non-corporate, free, flossy and open and somehow less evil. This is like proposing open-source jail where all jailers and guards will be certified as FSF, EFF and FFF-compliant, and everyone can make their own jail for free. *uck that. There is no motivation because the subject does not attract highly talented developers, it attracts underemployed or tax-funded wannabees. Social networking is essentially a non-interesting hype, good for the sheeple and social sciences graduates. Let me give you an example: during 90s there was a strong motivation to develop good encryption tools and propagate them. This motivation did attract very talented people, and they created things which were not look-alikes of corporate counterparts. There were no lookalikes. SSL. PGP. DH. Very few really knew what these things were. The authors were not motivated by the me-too-facebook drive that will provide recognition by the masses. There was ideology behind it, and it was not slashdot fame or VC money. They didn't expect masses to understand anything. Yet their stuff had profound influence on the wire as we know it. They let the ghost out of the bottle. The social networking development today attracts third-rate technologists, testosterone-laden entrepreneurs and a lot of idle unemployed. This is why it's all more of the same. You will know that you are on the right track in social networking development if (a) it's declared illegal, (b) you are scorned by the social networking luminaries and (c) there is no way to make money out of it, yet it's sustainable. You cannot politically defy the institutions when all you really wanted was to be clasped to their bosoms and hope in time to be cherished under the very framework of oppressive values you are thinking of overcoming. That would be co-optation, revolution only in the sense of a circulation of elites rather than the extirpation of the very impulses of elitism. # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Re: nettime FW: When technology is utilized against us.
At some point, in late 90s, there was a collective shift from privacy to convenience. Convenience of not having to understand how technology works, convenience of being connected although slightly retarded, convenience of free shiny user interfaces provided by private corporations in exchange for eyeballs. That was so much easier than using cumbersome ad-hoc encryption (which, even without certificates, would completely cripple interference by lesser governments.) Revolutions, however, do not favor retards. I really do not understand the purpose of this consternation along the we are sending cleartext and ISPs, governments and service providers are meddling with it lines. Do you really think that pathetic righteous whining will stop deep packet inspection? It will not. Whatever you conveniently and effortlessly send in cleartext will always be intercepted and used against you, sooner or later, in every single jurisdiction in the world. Think of it as applied Darwinism. As long as you prefer convenience to prudence, you will get deep rectal inspections. ...the Iranian government appears to be engaging in a practice often called deep packet inspection, which enables authorities to not only block communication but to monitor it to gather information about individuals, as well as alter it for disinformation purposes, according to these experts. # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Re: nettime what makes a notable life? [wikipedia]
Hmmm, the desire to be widely spamm... advertised to mediocre masses (noted) is somehow in the collision with the desire that qualification for such marketing is administered by some elite and not the mentioned mediocre masses, right? Well, you know the old saying ... tough shit. I assume that the enlightened elite already recognizes you, without need for saturating the channels for mediocre masses. I mean, they read nettime and other Very important ACademic, artistic and CUltural OUtletS, right? So, pray tell, why do you care to be known to the average, who cannot grasp concepts not regurgitated and blended by the mediocre? Is there money to be made? # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Re: nettime Google dubbed internet parasite by WSJ editor
It is the fact that selling news for cash directly to end users today does not work. Maybe because there is more cash in selling ads next to news, but still, it doesn't work. Considering getting rid of advertising assumes an act of choice, where some critical mass of people would prefer to buy news directly as opposed seeking them through ad-supported outlets. While people may make this choice, consumers do not exercise a choice, they have been bred not to have one, and the breeding worked. It's a closed system with tight feedback. The best I can think of is offering people $10 print weeklies and $100 monthly subscriptions to daily news, and see if it's sustainable. My guess is that it has been done and it didn't work. What is needed is a competing eugenics program. Getting rid of advertising in news media is worth considering, no matter the technology used, paper, airwaves, internet. The need for advertising to support news is not an absolute, merely a rationale for boosting profits, and worse, valorizing advertising way beyond its value. # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Re: nettime Slumdog Millionaire: A Hollow Message of Social Justice (Mitu Sengupta, AlterNet)
I wonder if FFT analysis of these (and past) candidates' compressed forms could find correlations and become predictive about winners. A rather irrelevant and pataphysical footnote to this critique: In my own attempt of compressing this year's Oscar-nominated films to full-length 1.44 MB files as part of my Floppy Films project # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Re: nettime Sonia Verma:Driven down by debt, Dubai expats give new meaning to long-stay car park
That was the upside of offshoring - it also offshored at least some of the crookery, speculations and sheer idiocy. # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Re: nettime Digital Humanities Manifesto
For me, digital is a woody kind of word. Similar to shruberries. # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Re: nettime Digital Humanities Manifesto
The problem at hand is a basic literacy. 'Digital' is used as a completely unsuitable substitute for 'discrete'. Film is discrete, even images on the computer monitor are discrete, but their internal representations can be digital or not. The two are not related. By the same token, traditional projected film is a digital system, since it's quantized into still images (frames), # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Re: nettime Google cranks up its Engines of Consensus
Page rank has far less significance than it had 6-7 years ago when Google, Inc. got established - exactly by using page rank. The problem is the ratio of human-generated links to machine/corporation/blogger generated links. These days it's far smaller than it used to be. When was the last time you created a permanent link to an interesting permanent page on a permanent publicly-accessible page? Even if Google, Inc. wanted to harvest it it's just not there. # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: nett...@kein.org
Re: nettime Call for support: Pirates of the Amazon, taken down by Amazon.com
I beg to differ. My example was obviously artificial, as so far no one did it in thename of art, but it *is* comparable: - the creators of the Work do not benefit or detriment themselves in cash terms, other than the benefit propagating the artistic statement. - the public has a choice of doing 'legal' transaction, 'illegal' transaction, or no transaction at all (perhaps your funds are very tight; you approach ATM but still are considering it; then you see the free alternative.) - there is damaged party. Now the contention appears to be here - if distributor (Amazon) and publisher are damaged, the enlightened audience feels it's OK,as it's evil corporate private property that stiffles creativity. If creative individual's private property is damaged, that's Bad. So in essence a disagreement with my example is either a proposal for two kinds of private properties (one whose infringement is more ethical than the infrigment of the other one) or a proposal for abolishment of the private property. The real problem I am having is that it seems to me that it's the latter disguised as the former, which is plain hypocrisy. You either have (metaphorical) balls or you don't. # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: nettime [Augmentology] _A Warcry for Birthing SyntheticWorlds_
A parasite must have the same (bio)mechanics as the host, so parasiting on digital means being digital. There is a number of such projects in the existance - look up 'darknet'. The question here is whether the host can be dumped altogether. A new Underground Internet Network. Completely separate from the present Internet but constantly parasiting on it, secret and in some way that I can't even start imagining, NOT based on digital computers but on some analogue servers that are difficult to detect and destroy and which can be mirrosited in many places. # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: nettime [Augmentology] _A Warcry for Birthing Synthetic Worlds_
Two important aspects are ownership of communications infrastructure and established expectations. Ownership - does it matter whose wire it is? We are so used for all wires to be owned by third parties that we don't even think about it. Would it change the nature of communication if participants truly owned the channel? Expectations - does all tele-communication need be instant? Is this expectation somewhat limiting? For example, wireless/IR-equipped handhelds, PDAs smartphones could establish point-point connections with nearby participating devices and propagate bits by hand delivery to the next hop (routing being geo-based and augmented with movement predictions of the particular device). Your message may traverse dozens of carriers until it reaches the destination, perhaps few days later (I've heard that this is how e-mail actually works in some parts of Cambodia - bike messenger carries a wireless laptop that picks and delivers mail from server in each village she passes through, probably using some form of UUCP.) The *need definition* has been co-opted by the commercial domain and there is disconnect between that elusive original unadulterated need (if we assume one exists at all) and technological development. This is why all breakthroughs are simply more of the same with a different font, and real innovations ocassionally happen outside mainstream - P2P, network computing - all that stuff motivated by access to free movies, music and good porn (and justified as a tool for freedom-fighting and saving China from censorship :-) So here we are now, with somereally good examples based upon our historical experience. And I think networkcoding is the only thing that I’ve heard which is making waves in terms ofradical change in how data is communicated across communication networks. ... In terms of routing maili traffic,well one could also create an entirely separate messaging based network whichexists physically separate from the existing internet. Perhaps we will be ableto do this when the cost to put satellites up in the air comes down and we’llbe able to form our own ephemeral networks which aren’t reliant on routers, butinstead are reliant on oxygen and hydrogen ions moving between wearablecomputing. # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: nettime [Augmentology] _A Warcry for Birthing Synthetic Worlds_
There is a looming feeling that most of the development stopped in the last decade or so and what passes for development and innovation for the unwashed is simply commercial proliferation. The raison d'etre of startups today is to make Cisco or Google 0.1% richer. Some very powerful concepts have not yet re-surfaced (like Veronica - it was a fully distributed (because there were so many instances :) search engine for Gopher sites. Gnutella mimicks some of it today, but there are no mainstream apps.) What may be interesting is potential influence of ever-increasing edge computing power (things in end users' hands) and increasing bandwidth, on the 20th century networking topology. If any. Routing for example. Is it technologically required that this mail to nettime-l@kein.org moderator first travels from north america to Cologne, DE, subject to good will of several governments and commercial entities, and then gets picked by the moderator from who knows where? Is this centralised (server-based) architecture today technologically or commercially/politically mandated? Mesh self- and source-routed networks worked well on limited basis in 2000. Today, with all these gates crammed in tiny PDAs, access points, etc., it's totally conceivable that routing could be done without centralised servers and likely implemented at least in dense areas fully covered with wireless (and let's not forget IR). Moving terabytes without ever touching an ISP does not have technological barriers today. Yet it's not happening. There is not much incentive for self-organised networks these days. The point is that technology is not the barrier. The demand is the barrier. We simply cannot figure out WTF it is that we want from the technology. Most of technology today is like dark fiber - sitting there being available but of no use. There is really no new content class, save computer games and consumer-generated drivel. It's no wonder that 90+% of all bits moved is stolen content from 100 years old industry - movies. Web was big success primarily because it further automated the mail order concept - everything else was a side-effect. For the next big thing we will need something else to automate, and it seems that we are running out of ideas. Automating captivity - virtual worlds etc. - ain't it. While that may be true, HTML was nothing special in that regard. When it was invented, it was just another member of the large family of markup # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
nettime RFC 7888 - Potlatch Now
Never Working Group M. Elloi Request for Comments: 7888VS Category: InformationalJuly 2008 Potlatch Now Status of This Memo This memo provides information for the Nevernet community. It does not specify an Nevernet standard of any kind. Distribution of this memo is unlimited. Abstract There is a lot of swindling happening in the art world. There is a clear need to establish a baseline from which art can be uniformly evaluated and levelled. Table of Contents 1. What is ???Potlatch Now??? ? 2 1.1. The Venue ..2 1.2. Inside .2 1.3. The ritual .2 1.4. Shredder ...2 1.5. Post production - Art Body Bags 2 1.6. Philosophy .3 2. WTF is ???Potlatch??? ? .3 Elloi et al. Informational [Page 1] RFC 7888 Potlatch Now July 2008 1. What is ???Potlatch Now??? ? A high-brow circus event with a deep philosophical meaning and a brilliant comment on post-futuristic nightmare we live in. Also a good opportunity to get famous, laid, rich or damned. 1,1 The Venue: A stark industrial hall with full bar, DJ, live music, and a separate stage with industrial-grade Art Shredder, capable with dealing with any art or artist. At the entrance: - People queue, many of them holding some art. - At the door, entrance is free to those who bring ???real??? art. The art is screened by Art Agents who will judge the art and decide if it's eligible. Must be shreddable - photography, paintings, mixed media, etc.. No painted bunnies or chicken. Otherwise it's $10. There are two kinds of agents: east european agents (see pic - also must have those european large thin leather handbags) and american fed agents from 60's - blue suits, black shoes, short hair. - The Art Agents should be totally humorless and business-like, slightly intimidating. Need a decent story about agents at the entrance - good enough so that there is always some doubt left that they may be real. Maybe: There was flurry of art theft in european and american galleries and it's possible that thieves may try to sneak in some of the stolen stuff, so the FBI is cooperating with Czech agents and screening at the door or This event is funded in part by the Homeland Art Agency and the agents are here to enforce minimum standards. - A black unmarked van with tinted windows is parked in the front of the venue. - Whoever brings art is a Contributor. 1.2 Inside: - Industrial music. Think Rammstein and Laibach. Drinks. The focal point is, however, the act of art destruction, which happens in batches with 15-20 minute breaks in-between. The atmosphere contrasts a club scene with the impersonal industrial/burocratic process of destroying art. 1.3 The ritual: - The Contributor steps on the stage. Music stops. He/she is met by the Art Official, who carries the Book of Dead Art, where Contributor's and artwork's names are entered. A Polaroid shot is taken of art being held by the contributor in front of the shredder. And then the stuff gets shredded. Music continues. - The whole process is efficient and non-theatrical. Staff doing their job in impersonal business-like way. Preferably the shredder is operated by migrant workers in jumpsuits in sweatshop atmosphere and with robot-like/conveyer nature of the industrial process. No one of the involved ever tries to be amusing or funny or theatrical. - The culminating point is the execution itself, when the artwork gets shredded. No music, silence, audience can only hear itself and the deafening noise of the shredder. 1.4 Shredder: Preferably a garden wood chipper (see pic.) Cheap, loud and shreds anything, Timing: The optimal number of Contributors should be determined by the process flow. If each batch has 10 Contributors, and each takes 1 minute, it's 10 minute show with 20 minute break in-between, which processes 50 in less than 3 hours. 1.5 Post production - Art Body Bags: - After shredder is full, or all stuff destroyed, the shredded stuff is packaged in cute little transparent art body bags dated and numbered 1 to 50. Each gets a
Re: nettime Judge Orders YouTube to Give All User Histories to Viacom
The unasked question was: why is youtube/google keeping all the viewing logs? From: Nettime's avid reader [EMAIL PROTECTED] oh, the joys of centralization :) # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: nettime Tom Hodgkinson: With friends like these... (about FaceBook)
There is a hint in this article that this particular computerized social network vendor is up to no good, and that millions of consumers buying into it are victims who don't know what they are doing. How is this different from any other aspect of consumerism (music, soft drinks, big screen TVs, mass media, billboards, clothing, fat-free bottled water, saving whales, brown sugar)? Manufacturing desires and needs and then selling means to satisfy them is an ancient art. Are we going to have separate essays and indignations about every new scheme and product, drawing the it wasn't like this line usually 5-10 years into the past? And to what point? To educate sheeple? Right, that one will work. Or even better, to request governments to regulate evil social networks? I think this is the implied goal. Instead of allowing novel scams to take place, we should reinforce the current kleptocracy scam (aka governments). Somehow patriotism is less idiotic from soft drink brand loyalty? Well, I find new swindlers more interesting. Facebook has 59 million users - and 2 million new ones join each week. But you won't catch Tom Hodgkinson volunteering his personal information - not now that he knows the politics of the people behind the social networking site end (of original message) Y-a*h*o-o (yes, they scan for this) spam follows: ... # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: nettime Critique of the Semantic Web
There is a sleigh of hand here that seem to be missed: use of page creator cooperation via tagging means allowing lying. Looking for kids, children, shoes or education will get you to a porn or mortgage site. Then you have to use page rank - basically, using linkers to filter out spam, and your tagging becomes meaningless. Google and other search engines went through significant pains to ignore false tagging through meta structures, correctly recognising that users want to search for what is on the page, not what page creator thinks is on the page. So now liars have to actually incude false keywords to be visible on the page, making it obvious to everyone that they are liars. But bona fide pages will most likely have those tags as a part of page content, so explicit tagging is, again, a moot point. What is the incremental value of tagging for search engines then? EUR 13.7M. end (of original message) Y-a*h*o-o (yes, they scan for this) spam follows: ___ Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your home page. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: nettime France unveils anti-piracy plan
The focus of the resistance to the copyright enforcement seems to be shifting to complaints about collateral damage, ie. unrelated (innocent) parties being sanctioned either by loss of privacy (this affects almost all consumers that don't have anonymizing abilities) or by more direct punishment or, in prosecuted cases, both. Eventually the technology will eliminate the latter and direct punisment will be applied mostly to the infringing parties, but we will all be snooped on. This is a major shift, I think, because the legitimacy of copyright law enforcement on the Internet have been finally acknowledged on all sides. This automatically means recognition of legitimacy of large-scale snooping (because there is no other mechanism available short of thieves turning themselves in voluntarily), which of course will be used for many other purposes (as terrorists have been used.) While designers and proponents of anonymizing software and P2P transport always declared highly ethical goals of helping some chinese dissidents, in reality 99.9% of the traffic is stolen content, spamming etc. Dissidents are simply not creative enough to produce any volume, it seems. My question is - what is the point of opposing the actual prosecution? Once the survelliance system is in the place, actual prosecution of the infringers is the last thing I care about (I personally think that whoever facilitates distribution of the mainstream crap should be spayed.) Once we get to this stage, catching pirates is free and positive as it reduces kitsch in the system. No, the real issue is is privacy more important than copyright law enforcement and the answer seems to be a resounding No. the digital equivalent of chopping off the hands of supposed thieves... this bonapartist bastard is really someone we should all unite against, online and offline. end (of original message) Y-a*h*o-o (yes, they scan for this) spam follows: ___ Get easy, one-click access to your favorites. Make Yahoo! your homepage. http://www.yahoo.com/r/hs # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
nettime Formalising the obsolence (Re: Goodbye Classic ?)
I wonder if a reliable metric can be established so that each medium can be properly labelled with the O-factor (obsolescence), that would give anyone using that media some clue as to how long will the media be functional. The units should probably be halflife in years. The more human behaviour influences O-factor, the smaller it is. If we start with the rock-pile media (you pile the rocks, producing pyramids, stonehenges etc.), the O-factor is in the range of thousands, because you depend on gravity, wind/precipitation erosion and humans stealing the rocks. With paintings, you depend on dye permanence (sensitivity to light etc.) and environment, and humans abusing the canvas for various reasons. O-factor is less than one thousand. Computer-based media depends on silicon fabs and all economy behind semiconductors, assembly lines, high-tech trade patterns, software manufacturers etc. There are probably several millions of humans directly involved in maintaining your typical computer-based media engine (although the computer seems to be a solid object on your desk, it's more realistic to think of it as a daily-publishing mechanism: you send an ad and the payment to your daily paper, their accounts receivable processes it, production integrates it, files are sent to the printer, paper distributed and tomorrow you see your art on the newsstand - that's the reliability of the computer performance, but with computers more things can go wrong.) O-factor is less than 10. So I'll propose a rough formula for the O-factor, bearing in mind that non-people influences are almost irrelevant compared to the people-influences: Of = 100 / log(H) where H is number of people on which your medium depends on. end (of original message) Y-a*h*o-o (yes, they scan for this) spam follows: __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: nettime International Competition: What Exactly is Terrorism? // blogging surveillance
Terrorism is the Word currently used to name concepts that justify the existance of and the stranglehold by the kleptocracy (aka state). Looking for its meaning in the dictionary is silly and immature. It has been elevated from the word stock by more or less pure chance - one has to be retarded to even assume that the Word has anything to do with its common meaning. Kleptocracy invests in the Word during the initiation phase, until subjects respond satisfactorily, after which the Word is self-sustainable. It's like infidel, the Jew, communism, barbarians and numerous other words that were elevated to the Word in the past. WTF does it matter what it used to mean? Is that going to change anything? The fact that few intellectuals, who were never expected to properly respond to the Word anyway, keep pointing to its original word meaning, is genuinely confusing authorities (why don't these educated people get it?) I think it's lack of the basic understanding of how mental dictionaries work, and once a word becomes the Word, it's original meaning is overwritten, updated, not with another 'meaning' but with the attribute of the Word. So what does then 'terrorism' mean, for dummies? It means that you will not resist when you are asked to pay to fight it. It means that you will spontaneously confess the guilt when accused of it. It means that, for at least 15 minutes after it being uttered, you will voluntarily suppress your cognitive abilities. It means that you will automatically condemn anything labelled by it, including yourself. Does this clear the confusion? International Competition: What Exactly is Terrorism? The Federal Prosecution is after it. The Red-Green Coalition is trying to redefine it. The Federal Court has to evaluate it and our friends are to be charged because of it. end (of original message) Y-a*h*o-o (yes, they scan for this) spam follows: __ Do You Yahoo!? Tired of spam? Yahoo! Mail has the best spam protection around http://mail.yahoo.com # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Re: nettime Community WiFi in UK and Germany, a round-up
Actually, the Internet is my personal entertainment device, as the rest of the Universe. I understand that this is in collision with the prevalent fashion of higher causes and justifications, but that's how it is. The point about Internet-enabling untapped databases is valid. But such enterprises are not really related to providing access to end-users, except as demand-creating vehicle. It is a local issue, ie. Kazahstanis getting access which prompts Kazahstan national library to digitize information, etc. Those scenarios do happen and digging into such newly exhibited archives is probably ther most rewarding experience the Internet provides these days. But in this thread the subject was the last mile in the, let's face it, highly-developed environments where all protagonists already have 'regular' access. Is the real issue preserving the quality of the access by factoring out current provider interests, or just enabling the less affluent to have the same interest-laden access? For my entertainment purposes, the former is more important. # distributed via nettime: no commercial use without permission # nettime is a moderated mailing list for net criticism, # collaborative text filtering and cultural politics of the nets # more info: http://mail.kein.org/mailman/listinfo/nettime-l # archive: http://www.nettime.org contact: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
