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Vote the Experimental Party!
America's latest political party. "We must work to incorporate the avant-garde and the spirit of experimentalism into the fabric of our nation. The history of our next hundred years must emerge from the rich mosaic of alternative culture, from the lofts of San Francisco to the barrios of New York City." One mad artist with unfortunate facial hair and a Tom Paine fetish.
God love ALL the kooks.
posted to MetaFilter by theplayethic
at 3:34 PM on April 30, 2003
(6 comments)
The Ambient Orb
No, not a prog-rock-house fusion band... But a little wireless egg, that sits on your desk, talks to your dataflows, and glows appropriately. Stocks up? Glows green. Lover online? Glows red. You calibrate the frosted glass through "thousands of colours". These
design jockeys think it could be cooler though. Already, though, the idea is really mellowing me out. "The Lava Lamp of the 21st Century"...
posted to MetaFilter by theplayethic
at 2:29 AM on April 17, 2003
(13 comments)
Nationalise Google?
"Perhaps the time has come to recognise this dominant search engine for what it is - a public utility that must be regulated in the public interest." Bill Thompson from the BBC tells me that Google puts a cookie on my computer that can't be deleted till 2038: "This means that Google builds up a detailed profile of your search terms over many years. Google probably knew when you last thought you were pregnant, what diseases your children have had, and who your divorce lawyer is. It refuses to say why it wants this information or to admit whether it makes it available to the US Government for tracking purposes." Are they "a secretive, hyper-competitive company with no respect for the personal privacy of its users"? Are other search engines better behaved? And is this the beginning of
search ethics?
posted to MetaFilter by theplayethic
at 2:19 AM on April 14, 2003
(60 comments)
The Second Superpower Rears its Beautiful Head.
"With its mind enhanced by Internet connective tissue, and international law as a venue to work with others for progressive action, the Second Superpower is starting to demonstrate its potential." Starry-eyed Wired-era cyber-bull? Or are bloggers and texters (plus peace activists) the vanguard of the revolution?
Douglas Ruskhoff concurs.
posted to MetaFilter by theplayethic
at 4:11 AM on April 3, 2003
(12 comments)
The Chant of the Weed.
"Think of the received image of the jazz musician, the young man with a horn or the tortured singer with the gardenia in her hair. And think what baggage they carry, along with the reeds and the valve oil and the spare mouthpieces. Somewhere in the flight case or purse, tucked away out of sight but still seemingly essential to the image, a little something for after the gig, maybe weed, maybe white powder, maybe a discrete bottle of pills. Like it or not, drugs are very much part of the history and still more of the mythology or jazz." And you gotta hear the clip of
Cocaine Habit Blues.
posted to MetaFilter by theplayethic
at 1:01 AM on March 28, 2003
(12 comments)
Fuck Hip Hop.
Title of a block-rockin' essay by dj, filmmaker and cultural activist Pierre Bennu.
I think the time has come to bid a farewell to the last black arts movement. It’s had a good run but it no longer serves the community that spawned it. Innovation has been replaced with mediocrity and originality replaced with recycled nostalgia for the ghost of hip hop past, leaving nothing to look forward to. Honestly when was the last time you heard something (mainstream) that made you want to run around in circles and write down every word. When was the last time you didn’t feel guilty nodding your head to a song that had a ‘hot beat’ after realizing the lyrical content made you cringe.
Tough questions, Pierre. And the whole piece is even tougher. Here's
a few responses from Nettime.
posted to MetaFilter by theplayethic
at 1:06 AM on January 7, 2003
(142 comments)
Och, It's Wee Jonnie Updike.
A verging-on-the-
Brigadoonish rewrite of Scottish national bard Robert Burns (you'll be singing his
"Auld Lang Syne" in about 24 hours), by the scrofulous old Joyce of the 'burbs himself. The original verse is "To a Mouse", rewritten after the news that geneticists find a lot in common between the DNA of mice and men.
Wee, sleekit, cow'rin, tim'rous beastie,
Braw science says that at the leastie
We share full ninety-nine per cent
O' genes, where'er the odd ane went.
'At the
leastie'!? Jings, crivens, help ma boab, I think he's jeopardised his joab.
posted to MetaFilter by theplayethic
at 3:16 PM on December 30, 2002
(4 comments)
DARPA: still inventing the future (stand up straight with that exo-skeleton, son). April 2002 list of public projects from Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, whose charter (let us not forget) is "to prevent technological surprise from harming U.S. national security by sponsoring revolutionary and innovative high-payoff research." Wonder which one of these beauties will have their payoff in civilian life, a la Arpanet?
And a small niggly point: should this stuff even be made public?
posted to MetaFilter by theplayethic
at 3:52 PM on July 13, 2002
(8 comments)
Major muckraking - Greg Palast on C-Span. God I love C-Span, sitting here in the UK with a broadband connection, going thru the archive. You'd
never see an anti-corporate author given a polite 50 minutes to explain his book in Britain. I'm only wondering when the Homeland Security hawks will get round to rapping the knuckles of Mr. Lamb's outstanding operation.
posted to MetaFilter by theplayethic
at 12:37 PM on April 8, 2002
(6 comments)
Kurzweil teleports to nanotech conference. Well, nearly... it looks like an oversized teleprompter - but according to those who were there, a lifesized 3D image of ace tech-visionary
Ray Kurzweil did indeed appear at a conference in Richardson, Texas, March 7, 2002.
"I thought it worked really well," said Steve T. Jurvetson, Managing Director, Draper Fisher Jurvetson. "I thought it was at least 95% of the real thing. In fact, the person that followed strangely enough seemed pale and flat. In comparison Ray almost was more realistic and three-dimensional." But will it share a Bud in the after-meet schmooze? In any case, we always knew that, in terms of the tech-spec,
The Force Was With Us.
posted to MetaFilter by theplayethic
at 7:05 AM on March 12, 2002
(19 comments)
Does anyone care that nobody needs to sing well anymore? Spot-on piece about the way that digital music tools aren't just making rotten singers sound OK (with software that shifts their pitch upwards), but good singers lazy ("hey that's fine, just copy'n'paste it into the next chorus").
And removing the excitement from studio performance. Is the only honest response to this electro-fakery to go all
Daft Punk? Or am I just an old Stevie'n'Retha'n'Marvin nostalgist?
posted to MetaFilter by theplayethic
at 3:36 AM on February 14, 2002
(53 comments)
Is a technology of ecstasy worth the risk? My favourite critic
Barbara Ehrenreich writes a real thought-provoker for Forbes.
"We don't need ecstasy, of course. For that matter, we don't need plain old genitally driven orgasms either; humans can get along just fine and even reproduce without them. But we are, for unknown evolutionary reasons, wired for ecstatic experience--never mind that our current social arrangements do not encourage it. Since ancient techniques of ecstasy like the danced ritual are no longer easily applicable, why not develop new ones, more congenial to an overpopulated and urbanized world?" Well, why not? Aldous Huxley's Soma is
way overdue anyway.
posted to MetaFilter by theplayethic
at 4:01 AM on January 31, 2002
(18 comments)
The Robots Are Coming (Yawwwn...). Yet another corporate futurist (with a
bizarre 1996 Mosaic-type website) telling us that A.I. will deliver the "homework" robot by 2006 (now, is that January or December?). Also, look out for an
emotionally responsive Barbie:
"We already have technologies that can measure stress, using simple cues like skin condition and temperature and it will be easy to put these in Barbie dolls which will be able to talk to little girls when they are upset and ask what is wrong." Ech.
posted to MetaFilter by theplayethic
at 5:02 AM on January 22, 2002
(21 comments)
