Since 1986 Bob Dylan has lost his wang

In and interview with rolling Stone Bob Dylan is quoted as saying:

"I don't know anybody who's made a record that sounds decent in the past 20 years, really,"

"You listen to these modern records, they're atrocious, they have sound all over them," he added. "There's no definition of nothing, no vocal, no nothing, just like ... static."

It's sad when someone who used to be so revolutionary as Bob Dylan is suddenly trying to codify "good" and "bad" sounding recordings. One would hope that he could embrace digital technology for all its faults, not because it sounds like analog, but because it is what exists and it allows for much more massive transfer of media than analog. Listening to an i-pod will never "feel" like sitting in the living room listening to vinyl, but the differences between the two should be exploited by the songwriter and not just complained about.

So I propose that Bob Dylan should retire from cool, and we should make him a playlist to listen to in the "retired from cool retirement home". I'll start with a few albums that have been both good and released since 1986 and maybe even a product of the digital environment:

OK Computer and Kid A- Radiohead
Pinkerton - Weezer
Yoshimi Battles Pink Robots - Flaming Lips

post some more?

Freak Out! It's NOT a Terrorist!

T-Shirt that says "I am not a terrorist" in Arabic.

From the creator's website:

"I offer this shirt as my response to the ridiculousness of the hysteria...The real point of terrorism is not the act itself, but our reaction to the act. We are reacting badly. Buy a shirt, don't buy a shirt, I don't care. Let's just all calm down."

Tim Murtaugh, the creator, made it:

"After reading about blogger Raed Jarrar's experience at JFK (he was forced to take off a shirt with Arabic writing on it or miss his flight) "


I agree with his assertion that the terrorists are winning right now. Here's why:

The goal of international terrorism is to subvert the government by causing lawmakers to overreact and induce fear in it's citizens (via rediculous laws and anti-terror measures). The media is an accomplice in all the terror ranting, by creating hysteria over potential attacks instead of actual attacks. Since the government is elected by the people of the country, it allows the terrorists to claim that ALL the citizens of a country are responsible for it's foreign policy...and therefore they can attack the citizens. (wtf? I wasn't even born when Ronald Reagan first took office...how am I suddenly implicated in this?)

The more we react to terrorism, the more the terrorists will be encouraged to continue it....didn't any of our lawmakers take any sort of political science course? Gosh! This all seems pretty basic...I really don't understand.

Thanks to Boing Boing for the link

We all speak

With my increasing Interest in how to bring the power of the Internet outside of the computer and have it affect other situations, I'm pleased I've found the organization 'Dropping Knowledge'. They collect questions from Internet users around the world focused on what can be done to tackle the problems facing us as a global society. On September 9th, here in Berlin, they're organizing a debate forum with 112 of the worlds leading voices and thinkers, where all questions will be discussed and recorded and made available on their website as a 'living library'. There is still time to ask questions- have a look, the website is pretty classy as well.
www.droppingknowledge.org

Open the Future

This article appeared on Jamais Cascio's site (www.openthefuture.com) about how journalists can be better "futurist reporters." His site is great, I came across it after hearing him on the R U Sirius show. I'd say the article has a lot to do with stuff we've all been discussing here at this big log.

Twelve Things Journalists Need To Know to be Good Futurist/Foresight Reporters

Originally published (in somewhat modified form) June 14, 2006

J. Bradford DeLong and Susan Rasky, at the Neiman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard, compiled lists of what economists need to know about journalists, and what journalists need to know about economists, in order to result in useful and accurate economic reporting.

This is a remarkably good idea, one with direct application in a number of disciplines that are important for society but prone to obfuscation and confusion in the press. Such lists could be valuable to journalists who are, by and large, generalists talking about fields that they probably didn't study, under time and financial pressure from editors and publishers who almost certainly know even less.

1. "Prediction is very hard, especially when it's about the future." -- Yogi Berra Completely accurate foresight is a rare thing; most of the time, good futurism means getting key elements right, even if the superficial details are wrong. Predictions based on physical principles and scientific knowledge tend to do better than those based on "trendspotting" and "cool hunting," and are more likely to be corroborated by other specialists. In every case, however, the most important question to ask is "why?" Why would the suggested change happen? Why would people make the predicted choice? Why would we see this particular outcome?

2. Not everyone is surprised by surprises. The corollary to #1, be on the lookout for people who saw early indicators of surprises before they happened. Just like an "overnight success" worked for years to get there, the vast majority of wildcards and "bolt from the blue" changes have been on someone's foresight radar for quite awhile. When something happens that "nobody expected," look for the people who actually did expect it -- chances are, they'll be able to tell you quite a bit about why and how it took place.

3. Even when it's fast, change feels slow. It's tempting to assume that, because a possible change would make the world a decade from now very different from the world today, that the people ten years hence will feel "shocked" or "overwhelmed." In reality, the people living in our future are living in their own present. That is, they weren't thrust from today to the future in one leap, they lived through the increments and dead-ends and passing surprises. Their present will feel normal to them, just as our present feels normal to us. Be skeptical of claims of imminent future shock.

4. Most trends die out. Just because something is popular or ubiquitous today doesn't mean it will be so in a few years. Be cautious about pronouncements that a given fashion or gadget is here to stay. There's every chance that it will be overtaken by something new all too soon -- and this includes trends and technologies that have had some staying power.

5. The future is usually the present, only moreso. Conversely, don't expect changes to happen quickly and universally. The details will vary, but most of the time, the underlying behaviors and practices will remain consistent. Most people (in the US, at least) watch TV, drive a car, and go to work -- even if the TV is high definition satellite, the car is a hybrid, and work is web programming.

6. There are always options. We may not like the choices we have, but the future is not written in stone. Don't let a futurist get away with solemn pronouncements of doom without pressing for ways to avoid disaster, or get away with enthusiastic claims of nirvana without asking about what might prevent it from happening.

7. Dinosaurs lived for over 200 million years. A favorite pundit cliche is the "dinosaurs vs. mammals" comparison, where dinosaurs are big, lumbering and doomed, while mammals are small, clever and poised for success. In reality, dinosaurs ruled the world for much, much longer than have mammals, and even managed to survive a planetary disaster by evolving into birds. When a futurist uses the dinosaurs/mammals cliche, that's your sign to investigate why the "dinosaur" company/ organization/ institution may have far greater resources and flexibility than you're being led to believe.

8. Gadgets are not futurism. Don't get too enamored of "technology" as the sole driver of change. What's important is how we use technology to engage in other (social, political, cultural, economic) activities. Don't be hypnotized by blinking lights and shiny displays -- ask why people would want it and what they'd do with it.

9. "Sports scores and stock quotes" was 1990s futurist-ese for "I have no idea;" "social networking and tagging" looks to be the 2000s version. Technology developers, industry analysts and foresight consultants rarely want to tell you that they don't know how or why a new invention will be used. As a result, they'll often fall back on claims about utility that are easily understood, familiar to the journalist, and almost certainly wrong.

10. "Technology" is anything invented since you turned 13. What seems weird and confusing will become familiar and obvious, especially to people who grow up with it. This means that, very often, the real utility of a new technology won't emerge for a few years after it's introduced, once people get used to its existence, and it stops being thought of as a "new technology." Those real uses will often surprise -- and sometimes upset -- the creators of the technology.

11. The future belongs to the curious. If you want to find out why a new development is important, don't just ask the people who brought it about; their agenda is to emphasize the benefits and ignore the drawbacks. Don't just ask their competitors; their agenda is the opposite. Always ask the hackers, the people who love to take things apart and figure out how they work, love to figure out better ways of using a system, love to look for how to make new things fit together in unexpected ways.

12. "The future is process, not a destination." -- Bruce Sterling The future is not the end of the story -- people won't reach the "future" and declare victory. Ten years from now has its own ten years out, and so on; people of tomorrow will be looking at their own tomorrows. The picture of the future offered by foresight consultants, scenario planners, and futurists of all stripes should never be a snapshot, but a frame from a movie, with connections to the present and pathways to the days and years to come.

When talking with a futurist, then, don't just ask what could happen. The right question is always "...and what happens then?"

by Jamais Cascio -- for more information, write to cascio at openthefuture dot com

Copyright 2006 Jamais Cascio

Internet Gallery mondo awesome face

As a Part of a ten year anniversary, Rhizome.org hosted an online exhibition called Faultlines. From their website:

The works in Faultlines consider the desires, fictions and anxieties embedded in online communities and also reveal how "real-world" issues, such as commerce and international politics, drive relationships in the virtual sphere just as they do offline.

My favorite pieces were automated beacon, the dumpster, and the myspace intro playlist. They play well into the thesis of the show, and the interface of "the dumpster" is really a fantastic way to experience the endless supply of personal internet ventings in a way that allows you to really feel overwhelmed by the size of the internet.

The interesting thing about having an online exhibition is that there is no ownership to the curator or webspace. The links in the show are accessible without ever going to rhizome's website, and therefore the exhibition acts more like a mixtape than a museum style show with actual objects. There is no need to claim ownership of organizing these works, the show is created much more for the experience of the work than the curatorial pat on the back, or any sort of monetary gain.

The Looooooooonnnnnnnnggggg Tail

Christopher Anderson wrote a book called "The Long Tail", which discusses the current change in the internet and digital market. He is interviewed on KCRW's Politics of Culture podcast, and the conversation covers the implications of digital media, digital "shelf space", and the relationship between physical goods and digital goods and the birth of niche markets. The line he uses is "we are selling less of more".

link to the podcast

link to the book on Amazon

Beyond the basic business implications of digital media, the whole intellectual property/ copyright/ creative commons discussion is now the immanent major cultural debate. In general it highlights western culture's "obsession with possession" and digital music exchange will be on the forefront of a more broad cultural revolution to relinquish ideals of ownership in exchange for a shared experience. The desire to forego ownership has already been concieved of by the consumer, and now we must find ways to make it plausible for the creators and producers.

It's Allowed

The Books, a multi-media group I was first introduced to as an audio entity, cares for an exploratory website which is not dissimilar to the construction of their music. Collecting bits and pieces of musical/vocal detritus to build patchy yet cohesive layers of sound, it can be seen they approach the same aesthetic visually at www.thebooksmusic.com. While still functioning as an info source for the activity of the group, they are happy to play with simple experiments in interactivity, using an assortment of found objects from all corners of the junk market spectrum, as well as junk found on the Internet.

Are you a smooth criminal?

In the midst of some light summer reading, I came across an interesting passage in Dostoyevsky's "Crime and Punishment." The leading character, Raskolnikov, is explaining his progressive view on the human race (which eventually led him to murder two people, but we'll think about that another time).

"… In short, I maintain that all great men or even men a little out of the common, that is to say capable of giving some new word, must from their very nature be criminals – more or less, of course. Otherwise it’s hard for them to get out of the common rut; and to remain in the common rut is what they can’t submit to, from their very nature again, and to my mind they ought not, indeed, to submit to it….
… I only believe in my leading idea that men are in general divided by a law of nature into two categories, inferior (ordinary), that is, so to say, material that serves only to reproduce its kind, and men who have the gift or the talent to utter a new word. There are, of course, innumerable sub-divisions, but the distinguishing features of both categories are fairly well marked. The first category, generally speaking, are men conservative in temperament and law-abiding; they live under control and love to be controlled. To my thinking it is their duty to be controlled, because that’s their vocation, and there is nothing humiliating in it for them. The second category all transgress the law; they are destroyers or disposed to destruction according to their capacities. The crimes of these men are of course relative and varied for the most part they seek in very varied ways the destruction of the present for the sake of the better. But if such a one is forced for the sake of his idea to step over a corpse or waked through blood, he can, I maintain, find within himself, in his conscience, a sanction for wading through blood – that that sense I speak of their right to crime in my article (you remember it began with the legal question). There’s no need for such anxiety, however; the masses will scarcely ever admit this right, they punish them or hang them (more or less), and in doing so fulfill quite justly their conservative vocation. But the same masses set these criminals on a pedestal in the next generation and worship them (more or less). The first category is always the man of the present, the second the man of the future. The first preserve the world and people it, the second move the world and lead it to its goal. Each class has an equal right to exist."

In order to think outside the box, you first have to open the lid...

An article (The Expert Mind by Philip E. Ross) in the August 2006 issue of Scientific American discusses the methods employed by the minds of experts which allow them to be experts in their fields. The most interesting point is discussed in the following passage from the article.

"K. Anders Ericsson of Florida State University argues that what matters is not experience per se but "effortful study," which entails continually tackling challenges that lie just beyond one's competence. That is why it is possible for enthusiasts to spend tens of thousands of hours playing chess or golf or a musical instrument without ever advancing beyond the amateur level and why a properly trained student can overtake them in a relatively short time. It is interesting to note that time spent playing chess, even in tournaments, appears to contribute less than such study to a player's progress; the main training value of such games is to point up weaknesses for future study. Even the novice engages in effortful study at first, which is why beginners so often improve rapidly in playing golf, say, or in driving a car. But having reached an acceptable performance--for instance, keeping up with one's golf buddies or passing a driver's exam--most people relax. Their performance then becomes automatic and therefore impervious to further improvement. In contrast, experts-in-training keep the lid of their mind's box open all the time, so that they can inspect, criticize and augment its contents and thereby approach the standard set by leaders in their fields."