Anarchists in the Aisles?

Anarchists in the Aisles?

“What we do is try to inject a brief moment of wonder that helps wake them up from that rushed stupor,” he said, pausing to add, “That’s the true holiday spirit, isn’t it?”

Quick Notes

i consider myself to have officially joined the open source revolution. My laptop, upon which i'm writing this post, is now running Ubuntu Linux.
i'm seriously digging Linux and OpenOffice. It is equal to and in many, many ways better than Windows, especially Vista. It's not perfect but Linux is very, very good. It's is also free, hence the open source.
I believe Liux and open source computing is the future of computers and would encourage you to
GET UBUNTU HERE.

First Monday and Stephanie Mills

This Monday, First Monday released their monthly podcast, which is really quite fantastic. This month's podcast featured Stephanie Mills who, according to the blurb on the site functions as a "[m]odern day Luddite, ecological activist, writer and lecturer". The podcast is introduced in a similar manner that the blurb on the site refers Mills' purposes to" to critically assess the totality of technology which might mean limiting our pursuit of certain kinds of knowledge."
This podcast was tremendously interesting for two reasons. Mills focuses mainly on the impact of technology on the ecology of man in relationship to his stewardship of this Earth.She presents her point of technology's overwhelming footprint, especially in regards to our flagrant use of technology, without necessarily thinking of the effects to the local, national and international environments. Mills also stresses the needs to establish community on several different levels. This stress on the idea of community reaches from a desire for creation of "neighborhoods" between scientific,religious and technological factions to a propagation of community between local individuals. One of her most poignant points is the labeling of our culture as a culture of confrontation.
However, there are some things that were lacking in this podcast. Understandably there are only 15 minutes to present, defend and discuss on these ideas so they cannot be completely fleshed out but truthfully I was hoping for some more definitive concrete steps that could be utilized to either 1) create community or 2) take steps to analyze one's impact. (see Radiohead's site for a dramatic analysis of this) This podcast falls into the area of utopian idealism without necessarily prompting for continued action. This is not say Mills should have standing on the conference table waving the flag of revolution but it's strangely ironic that a self-proclaimed Luddit would be propagating her message over a podcast and owns a Mac. Mills understands the impact of her technology a landfill or developing country but seems unable to reconcile her use of technology to lessening the impact of technology.In all of Mills calling for community, the idea of community is not defined. Is community people simply meeting together? Mills gives the idea of a book group but what is the purpose of the community? Community for community's sake quickly degenerates into a art pour la art mindset which I do not believe is healthy.
I would encourage listening to the podcast; let me know what you think.

Google Gets Ready to Rumble With Microsoft

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Doris Lessing

Doris Lessing

The Nobel Prize in Literature 2007

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Crossover Dreams: Turning Free Web Work Into Real Book Sales

This is an intensely interesting article for two reasons. The first follows this quote from the article. "That a book derived from free online content has sold so well may allay
some fears that giving something away means nobody will want to pay for
it." Umm has anyone heard of Radiohead; anybody? Obviously this is slightly different but blogs amass their own cult following which evolves into what essentially is a fan base that will support that blog. If the blog is good enough, as Radiohead is good enough, the content put out by that blog will be support in other mediums. To paraphrase Thom Yorke's quote in a NYT article several months ago, people are willing to pay what they think the item is worth.
The second interesting thing that follows is a second quote, just below the one above. "I think books are still things, thank goodness, that people want to
own,” said Michael Jacobs, chief executive of Abrams. “The package of
the book and the way it feels is something apart and separate from
being able to read it online." Perhaps; but the people who bought this book are growing toward an increasing minority. What is not answered is here is why people want to own books. according to the last line of the article is an olfactory reason: “There’s nothing like holding the weight and smelling the paper.” Well if you want weight and smell I would suggest purchasing a ream of paper and smelling away.
It's the content of the book that is selling not the packaging. The original contents were posted on blogs and turned out to be fantastic so the transition to a marketable, purchasable item is not far off. This continues to parallel the Radiohead model. Radiohead introduce their songs for In Rainbows to concert audiences who immediately bootlegged them so that fans started coming to these shows already knowing the songs. Radiohead went into the studio and completely redid some of these works; see recent NYT article below.
Content is what matters not the smell.

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Pay What You Want for This Article

This is one of the best Radiohead post-release In Rainbows articles that i've read.
My favorite part is this quote from Yorke on pg. 1

"Signing a new major-label contract “would have killed us straight off,”
he [Yorke] added. “Money makes you numb, as M.I.A. wrote. I mean, it’s tempting
to have someone say to you, ‘You will never have to worry about money
ever again,’ but no matter how much money someone gives you — what,
you’re not going to spend it? You’re not going to find stupid ways to
get rid of it? Of course you are. It’s like building roads and
expecting there to be less traffic.”"

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Searching for Common Ground on Copyrights

What's most interesting about this is the second comment at the very bottom of the page. I'm assuming this information is true but any "copyright alliance" that has Microsoft signing on is rather sketchy. Especially as Microsoft has referred to Linux as un-American and violating copyright because of Linux's open source software.

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The natives are restlessly texting

There has been some really interesting debate going back and forth on the subject of "Digital Natives" (see Vaidhyanathan's Googlization of Everything and Gomez's Print is Dead for commentary and comments from both on this)
I would like to add my two cents, such as it is, to this debate. I had the distinct pleasure of hitting up the Electric Factory in Phila on Friday, December 10th to catch MeWithoutYou, Thrice and BrandNew. (Side note: Good show overall; wasn't a big fan of Thrice when I got there and that didn't change watching their set. BrandNew and MeWithoutYou continue to prove their energy and musicianship) The age of crowd probably ranged from 15-27 with some exceptions. I am admittedly on the older end of the scale weighing in at 24 years of age. What was really interesting to me, and bears the point of the "Digital Natives" is that as soon as the current band was finished with a song, not the set but a song in that set, these neon glows started popping up all around the crowd. In the middle of a show, these individuals were texting like they were breaking the next Pulitzer Prize winning story.
Please know that I'm not against texting or technology. The word "technology" is in my job title and I regularly utilize the alpha-numeric keys on my mobile for non-verbal communication. What really astounded me and continues to do so is the seeming inability to stop "being native" that is participating in a digital world. Just from looking around where I was in the crowd most of the texts were responses to conversations. Obviously there's a level of "I'm here; you're not sucker" but at the same time that wasn't the content of every single conversation. This is not to say that all 15-27 year olds fall into some marketing dynamic or technology cliche but I believe there is definitive truth in the nomenclature of "digital native". The behavior demonstrated at this show is bound to be consistent with behavior outside of the show.
I understand that attempting to label an entire generation on the basis of a 5 hour experience is not exactly a Barnum poll but I think it sheds some light on the debate. Texting is how these kids stay connected and breaking that connection, even for a short amount of time was not even comprehensible. I believe that this constant interruption of outside forces calling for attention is a trend that is noticeable in other areas. Taking this scenario outside of a rock'n roll show, why are these kids texting their friends between songs? Just a wild guess but if you ask I'll bet they say they are bored. the current spectacle has paused, however briefly and the need for new entertainment/stimulation is required. This changes the scenario from a love/hate one to a scenario where the individual feels perfectly justified in expecting interactions to fight for his attention by being the most entertaining, the most enjoyable or the most _________. This is not to say that we need to change all current approaches to education or outreach to only include digital models but that we need to be aware, especially myself as a MLIS student, that this digital zeitgeist is going to affect perceptions, philosophies and worldviews in yet unforeseen ways. At best it will provide us with incredible tools and knowledge; at worst it will birth a culture of entertainment vampires.

Politically Charged Prints Cause Talking in the Library

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Undercover restorers fix Paris landmark's clock

Undercover restorers fix Paris landmark's clock
long live the underground

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