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August 10, 2002
Joseph Zitt writes with regard to my mentioning Howard Rheingold’s “smart mobs” idea:
Larry Niven, in a sense, predicted this in 1973. Linking it with teleportation, he called them “flash crowds”. It’s already in the Jargon dictionary
Yikes. I even read that book lo these many years ago but didn’t make the connection. Thanks, Joseph.
Chip has unearthed a short Flash commercial that’s set to the tune of The Monkees‘ “Money” and that should bring comfort to registered Democrats all across this great land of ours.
August 9, 2002
We are leaving western Massachusetts this afternoon, ending what I would not allow to be a vacation.
I hope I’m very proud of myself!
Mark “SpassMeister” Kelly points out an article by the always-interesting Joel Garreau on cell-phone swarming (or what Howard Rheingold calls “smart mobs”). A taste:
This is the precise opposite of a 1962-style “American Graffiti” world. Then you had to go to a place — the strip, the drive-in — to find out what was going on. Now, you find out what’s going on by cell phone, and go to the place where it’s happening.
Mike O’Dell has been psychedelicized by The Technical Web of Sound, a “60’s Psychedelic Radio.” For example, ’twas there that he heard the marvelous tune, “The Gong with the Luminous Nose.” (Mr. O’Dell has confirmed that this was not a mis-typing of “The Bong with the, etc.”)
Paula Hatch-Sato points to the “Engrish” site that displays infelicitous uses of her mother tongue by speakers of her adopted tongue.
Meanwhile, I can’t believe that the local Friendly’s restaurants still have signs up that advertise “Free Sundae with Chicken.”
August 8, 2002
From Masha Geller’s MediaPost:
TiVo said that a recent video Showcase promoting the blockbuster comedy “Austin Powers In Goldmember” received the highest viewership yet of any advertainment offering, with two-thirds of subscriber households viewing the showcase during the two-week campaign. Viewers of the Showcase spent an average of six minutes interacting with the promotional videos stored on the TiVo hard drive.
According to TiVo officials, the consumer response to the Austin Powers Showcase demonstrates that advertisers can be successful in “an environment where the viewer is in charge, if they deliver messages that are both relevant and entertaining.” The Goldmember Showcase was comprised of nine video elements, including the full-length trailer that was otherwise only seen in theatres, and a personalized message to TiVo subscribers from Austin Powers star and creator, Mike Myers.
And then this afternoon, as if to confirm user-driven ads are an Official Trend, I heard a snippet from a broadcast of the California Commonwealth Club (?) on NPR. It was someone saying how the downward trend in TV watching and the emergence of TiVo-style recorders and the Net will mean that we will have to be enticed to watch political advertising because it’s entertaining and interesting. And who should this enlightened person turn out to be? Dick “The Whore” Morris. (Sorry, I meant no offense to providers of outsourced sexual services.)
I recently noted Jamie McCarthy’s concerns about the Windows XP service pack 3 end user license agreement that gives Microsoft the right to install whatever updates it wants — including Digital Rights Management stuff — without asking you.
Udhay Shankar responded to Jamie with a site that has a VBscript that lets you install most software without having to agree to the EULA. I haven’t tried it and don’t know if it works, if it’s legal or even if it’s harmless, but there would be a certain psychological satisfaction to circumventing the arbitrary demands of software EULAs.
August 7, 2002
AKMA is back riding on an old, cantankerous nag. Nope, not Dick Cheney. He’s concerned that the spatial metaphor just isn’t apt when applied to “cyberspace.” He is, as always, right. Yet, I still manage to find something to argue about. I argue because I love, as either Don Rickles or Nietzsche said.
I share many of AKMA’s feelings about the inadequacy of spatiality as a way of talking about and understanding the Net. But, I’m still stuck on the point I tried to make waaaay back when AKMA first initiated a blogthread on this topic: Like it or not, space is the lead metaphor we (= English speaking culture) have come up with. In some ways it is terribly inapt, and it’s important to flush out those ways. E.g., when we “enter” a Web site, we aren’t making the same type of commitment as when we “enter” most real world spaces. But, I don’t think we have a choice about using space as a metaphor. We don’t get to throw out a metaphor that’s as pervasive as space is to cyberspace just because it’s inapt. After all, all metaphors are inapt. We await a poet to give us a better way of seeing and speaking. Language speaks us, as either Charlie McCarthy or Martin Heidegger said.
So, I really like the way AKMA is poking at the metaphor to remind us of what it obscures, but I do not think that we humans can engage in the project of coming up with a new metaphor any more than we can dig ourselves out of a hole.
Mark Dionne has found the source of the Scandalous Diagram I ran a few days ago: http://www.markpoyser.netfirms.com/diagrams.htm. Mark is disappointed, however, that Lernout & Hauspie once again is ignored by those listing companies wounded by lying, scheming, greedy bastards.
Greg Allen writes:
While I realize you didn’t create the map, but it’s worth noting how much more central Jack Grubman is to the whole scheme. He was a literal “kingmaker,” the hub of many telecom partnerships (Juniper/Worldcom) and CEO transfers (ATT > Qwest). And as the NYTimes reported recently, he also doled out IPO shares to client/potential client CEO’s and other telecom Execs.
Of course, when I posted on my weblog, about Jack Grubman, it was the shocking theatrical aspect of Grubman getting accosted by (of all people) a CNBC reporter on the street.
Hank Blakely’s weekly letter about the doin’s of our “president” today looks at the question most troublin’ W: Why do they hate us? After rejecting notions that perhaps it might have something to do with our behavior…
…Mr. Bush merely stamps his little foot, tosses his pretty head, says “piffle!” and goes off in search of pleasanter alternatives; the current favorite being that they hate us because of our freedom.
Supporting, as all good citizens must, our leader in his every act and utterance, we are naturally reluctant to point out what might be considered a significant stumbling block on the way to his conclusion. Nonetheless we feel compelled to note that, since September 11th, freedom in America has experienced a rather substantial reversal of fortune and yet, if anything, the Islamic world seems to hate us even more. Plainly, the truth is still out there.
And while we’re on the topic, isn’t there something wrong when a president of a country that’s fighting a war on terrorism and is in the midst of an economic collapse is in the best physical shape of his life?
My spidey-sense – which heretofore has resulted in nothing but an intermittent diet of houseflies – tells me that the Digital ID World conference that Eric New Orleans (or “Eric Norlin” as he insists it be pronounced) has been touting could be important. So I’m gonna go. And I’ll be blogging about it for Boston.com, the Boston Globe’s online cousin. See you in Denver?
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