yeah, the respected ones never lie.

I'm not going to read Keen's Cult of the Amateur. There are a lot of potential excuses I could use here, but the pertinent ones are that a) the basic premise is so wrong I can rarely make it through skimming an article covering the book, and b) I'm to busy to waste that time.

This comes up because two rather new pairs of jeans have been stained. not just like, regular use dirt stained, but (through different circumstances) the kind of stains that require effort. After struggling to get grease out (and potentially trashing the pants), I googled it. The experience was worth noting, because my normal pattern for searching for how-to's relates mostly to techy stuff. The most recent example of this was the attempt to get non-DRM ringtones to play on my Nokia 6300; it didn't go well.

Searching for stain removal tips was painless. I typed in grease stain, and clicked on the least spammy looking result. Quick, painless. The interface of the page was hideous, it wasn't supremely functional, but I got the advice I wanted. all sounds good to me.

I thought later, in the shower, how one of Keen's points (as far as I understand) is that the internet and it's ability to give equal access and weight to amateurs will result in a technocracy, where only the internet savvy will be able to find access to the good content. Well, looking for technology related stuff, people who are somewhere in-between in terms of tech savvy (I'm theory, not practice), need to parse dialogue they may not natively understand, and usually accept the need to dig through a lot of 'I know guy, MSFT suxx0rs' when trying to find drivers for an old scanner.

The internet is filled with information put forth by amateurs, and, unshockingly, the most accessible information in terms of content is usually the most accessible information in terms of accessibility.

The assumption that one needs to be tech savvy to get useful content via an internet connection has to come from someone who is either somewhat uncomfortable with the idea of the internet (such as my mother) or someone who forgets that anything needs a skill set to use it -- reading everything in the NYT as though it was gospel is just as stupid as reading everything online without suspicion -- and the assumption that less modern media are somehow easier to use forgets that the technology in play was not always invisible.

The cult of the amateur is another little thing in this society; at time we refer to it as democracy. Everyone gets an opinion, everyone has a RIGHT to that opinion, and each individual needs to decide for themselves. We go with the will of the crowd from time to time. What's enshrining old media as the high point in cultural representation is the exact thing that's presenting the internet as a better way.

If you're afraid that too many individual voices will drown out the 'respectable' ones, than the question is more about the power and validity of that assumed credible source, rather than an invading, more popular option.

paparazzi panopticism.

Communication Theory 101: Foucault and the Panopticon. The general idea, skipping past the actual specifics and the path to the point, is that people who know they may be watched, without being certain WHEN they are watched, police themselves.

This is, at core, the major principle behind law enforcement. Punishment is an issue of deterrent, rather than justice. In short, we don’t commit crimes not only because it would be wrong to do so, but out of fear of getting caught.

Enter the modern era’s obsession with celebrity personal lives.

I was watching Lionel Ritchie on CBC’s The Hour, and one of the questions he was asked was whether or not his daughter, Nicole of Simple Life and drunk driving fame, was ‘okay’.

His answer is irrelevant.

The point of Foucault’s ideas was that people policing themselves, a society that polices itself, is the end result of a watched society. If you look at any one of the pre-eminent gossip blogs, you’ll see that the exact opposite is in effect,

When Britney, or Paris, or Lindsay finally accepted that privacy no longer existed for them, that paparazzi were ALWAYS watching, whether or not they could see them, they had to make a choice. It was either to live their entire lives as though the entire world was watching (because, most of the time, it was) or to live as though no one was watching at all.

So we get upskirt shots as they come out of limos, and celebrity sextapes, photographic evidence of idiotic behaviour, whether neglecting the safety of a child, or neglecting standards of decency.

Foucault, apparently, was wrong. When faced with a panoptic reality, societal norms aren’t reinforced; they’re demolished. This is the same reason constant surveillance is the hallmark of an unjust state – if watched closely enough, everyone is a criminal, is a failure, an embarrassment. Ergo, if you’re equally despised whether you do something small wrong, or live like a hedonist hero, you might as well have the fun.

The interesting thing about this is that it can be read one of two ways; either they have decided to own up to their behaviour, radical transparency style, and not care what people say, or they’ve simply decided that any behaviour will be derided, so why bother behaving.

In no way am I excusing the current rash of drunk driving celebutantes. I’m just looking at the impact this has on theory, because everyone else just seems to focus on the decision to either mock or pity them.

i've been busy.

I attempted to explain the simplest truth of modern technology to my father recently. Here goes,

The easiest way to change the world is to take something people like to do, and remove either the time-, or space-bias from that activity.

In other words, take something static in time or location, and make it movable in one or more ways.

This isn't necessarily huge innovation, but it accounts for most of the new technology that people obsess over.

by way of explanation.

The electric car is perfected. You can drive now, with no emissions. Obviously, the oil companies are pissed. Because, they have a monopoly on providing energy for drivers. Getting the energy to move a car is what oil companies exist for. But suddenly, beautifully, they aren't as important. You don't need to buy the gas as a means of conveying the energy to your car. You can just buy the energy. Or even MAKE it. And some people, some way, will find a way to steal energy, because electricity is a hell of a lot easier to transport than gasoline. Leeching off the grid unauthorised is massively simpler than hijacking a transport truck filled with liquid kaboom.

Now, the oil companies are pissed. They are getting fucked over, here. Decades and billions spent creating this functional, if wasteful infrastructure, and now some bastard makes it all worthless. There's only two options. Either they can realise their core business was never oil, it was energy. They can start again at the bottom, but with their massive war chests, important connections, and influence; or they can fight tooth and nail to demand that everyone keep buying and using gas-powered cars.

So guess which one they choose.

They bribe/lobby government representatives, talk about the ease of stealing energy as opposed to being forced to buy it in a physical form. They start suing people who slip past their stranglehold on the new technology, after convincing the government to pass a law that makes it illegal to break through the industry created locks on automobile systems. The issue of efficiency, and of the actual product versus the popularised means of transport are occluded it's about theft, and right, and how much they put into creating the current, though obviously inferior system.

So, people do the logical thing. They make and buy their own electric car systems when they can, and sometimes, they go a little further. When the electric car sneaks through legally, and companies insist you buy electricity at artificially inflated prices, from a specialised grid that will intentionally be incompatible with certain car systems, consumers start stealing the energy from the grid, because, really, fuck it. At a certain point, it's no longer logical to keep bending to a market that forgets you are the one making them rich.

Eventually, the threatening lawsuit idea proves insufficient as a scare tactic, and society needs to decide whether to put everyone in jail, or to stop listening to an obsolete industry that has no clue how the world works now.


*

This all came to mind while I was driving home from starbucks, and wishing I had a good adapter for playing my ipod through the car stereo. There's a CD player, and a radio that doesn't work, but both of these come with limitations that make them more irritating than pleasant. Obviously, the above was an attempt at pointing out the idiocy of the music industry, who have forgotten that the only product that ever made them money, was music. Not vinyl, tapes, cds, radio play, whatever. They sold music. And suddenly, when you could buy music without having to buy it on some form of plastic slab, they freaked the fuck out and forgot that music had been the product all along.

Stop trying to recreate the plastic slab model in digital form, stop trying to make everything the way it was. I understand most of the people in a decision making position are old, and confused, and have no concept of how to operate in the conditions that have arisen in their market. Much as any technology, sufficiently advanced, is indistinguishable from magic, any massive shift in the realities of a market, provided it destabilises enough limitations, will always be taken as an attack, and probably morally wrong.

if you keep trying to sell people an electric car that ensures you get paid just as well as you did for the internal combustion engine, PEOPLE ARE GOING TO STEAL. In anger, in defiance, in acceptance of the fact that you really, really, refuse to help them out even a little here.

Does anyone else think it's crazy than in less than a decade the music industry has created a situation in which the majority of the population would rather face the risk of a lawsuit demanding tens of thousands of dollars, than pay for music? Any subway system in the world can create a happy medium that ensures more people will pay to ride, rather than jump the turnstiles and risk attack. Hint: they didn't do it buy increasing the fine for turnstile jumping until it would ruin a family financially. They just didn't demand that each rider submit to being handcuffed to a seat until they reached their predetermined destination, in a form they submitted a month earlier.

People are afraid of retribution. But not to the point where they will put up with anything to avoid it.

liveblogging the inconsequential (1)

9.32pm experiment starts. A line has developed at starbucks, and the cute manager girl is herding people in an attempt to make it faster. I’m drinking a caffe vanilla frapp. I’m also reading LVHRD magazine (pdf).

9.35pm I take a sip.

9.35pm there’s an irritating mass of high school aged girls sitting in the corner behind me. The phrase ‘ohmygod’ is being tossed around like al gore’s name at a hipster dinner party. Or, I guess, like the word ‘like’. If it was socially acceptable, I would argue that these are the girls who should be sold into slavery in eastern bloc nations. But I doubt it is socially acceptable.

9.36pm ‘do you really need another dress’ – justification for selling them into slavery?

9.37pm I remember that, as a black man, I should probably not be so free and easy with the slavery jokes. I go back to my magazine.

9.39pm LVHRD magazine is now my go-to example for design ‘style’ being more important than readability, or functionality, or anything that actually matters. Pretty is good. Pretty and works is infinitely superior.

9.40pm I’ve learned to tune out the prostitots in the corner. Am I the only person in the world for whom working in PR is actually mellowing?

9.41pm the phrase ‘on crack’ is the new black.

9.43pm paul pope is my hero. I need more THB.

9.44pm my parents call. I inform them I have taken out the garbage. Rejoicing follows.

9.46pm deep notes that ‘it’s pretty loud for a Monday’ I respond with ‘it’s pretty fucking loud, yeah’. I hate everyone in the room excepting deep, cute starbucks girl, and my mac. We will move outside when the situation permits.

9.48pm I am running out of frappaccino. Alert the authorities.

9.48pm I am nearly certain that this is more interesting than the last liveblog I read, which was basically ‘crapcrapcrapcrap what, no love for children of men? Crapcrapcrap’.

9.51pm I am currently eavesdropping on another example of one minority group attempting to corner the market on being discriminated against. No, not black. Guess again.

9.53pm I really should be spending this time working on my press release writing skills. Trust me, it’s harder than it looks.

9.54pm I have finished reading LVHRD, I am again an advocate, that shit was beautiful.

9.55pm when the hell is PULPHOPE coming out already? The wait is killing me. Screw harry potter, this shit is important. There is currently 3.50 left on my macbook battery. I am seriously impressed, considering I’m refusing to turn down the brightness for no good reason.

9.57pm I’ve begun to read coroflot number 2, because it distracts me from the frat-boy-esque tards that keep talking about trashing hotels with their hockey teams.

10.00pm I just wasted two minutes reformatting the word doc of this ‘liveblog’. Two. Minutes. And still, the tedium.

10.01pm so is this more stream of consciousness, or just idiocy? Is this any more or less relevant than most liveblogging? Experiment ended.

I once wrote that the revolution wouldn’t be televised, it would be liveblogged and photocasted, it would be available from the citizenry and for the citizens of the world. I’m wondering if that’s the case, or if the revolution will be lost in the twitter storm of ‘I just had a sandwich’ that you can currently watch on a google maps mashup (insert link).

This was a proof-of-concept episode of LTI. Next time, it’s going to be a more focused event, although meaningless. The real dream is to pull off an LTI that is completely within the topic.

Meta. Meta. Meta.

10.05pm Okay, I just had to add this. One emo, pete wentz looking guy, and an army of not-quite-aware-they-are-chubby emo girls just walked out of the starbucks, talking about how they are going to some place on Richmond, and it’s amateur night. Teen whores heading to a strip joint. Like, 15. There is no god.

Not that I thought one was coming.

liveblogging the inconsequential (intro).

Sometime this week I hope to start a new random feature, called 'Liveblogging the Inconsequential'. The gist of it is, liveblogging is one of those popular, common, and arguably useless things that crop up around new tech as part of the law of unintended consequences. I can understand the theory, which is that someone will be watching the Oscars with a laptop, and read your hilarious commentary by the minute, clicking refresh in-between bouts of laughter.

More likely, however, someone reads it later that night, or the next morning, or while not watching the show at all, or while never having the intention to watch. And what they get is a list of timestamped posts with commentary like 'Jack Nicholson sure has a creepy smile. I wonder how much charisma one needs to expend to overcome such a disability.' But hopefully funnier.

Given my teensy readership, I see no need to actually update a post ad-nauseum, time by time. Instead, I'll just post my timestamped observations and thoughts, while doing something meaningless. Candidates for the first LTI post include re-watching the season of entourage thus far, listening to classic reggae albums that my father insists are relevatory, or on-site people watching from some cafe with wi-fi.

I'm sure you are amped about it.

addressing my laziness.

For once, my radio silence isn't about looking for work. I'm currently putting in some intern time, and as such, haven't really had as much time as I'd like for things like brokengent.

But, I'm still posting when I can, and readying a few comments and statements about Pownce (hint; I compare it to livejournal).

Still, I want to draw your attention to two things.

One, is a post of the Freakonomics blog, asking a simple and powerful question, 'How well would the concept of libraries go over today?'

This is an important question to ask, because to me, the library is one of the low-tech examples of the kind of freedoms that digital information isn't really allowed to have, at least according to some corporations and representative bodies that push hard for tighter copyright laws. Is the library a good thing? I hope most people would argue yes. Is it an example of societal benefit being put before the concerns of an industry? Obviously. (This is the part where you wonder why that is supposedly a bad thing.)

Thing two is a company called 'Subvert & Profit', who's raison d'etre is selling influence on the Digg community, and trying to get advertisers on the front page.

I was listening to the CBC yesterday, and someone pointed out that there had been definite tension between market supporters, and those who were, if not anti-market, than pushing for an alternative to total market dominance. Obviously, the market won. This is why revolutions are so consistently profitable; the concept of revolution only exists within the market. Every revolution is really just a new product that changes the status of old products when it is introduced.

Social networks, user generated content, the blogosphere, whatever. It's revolutionary, yes, but it is also, at core, a new paradigm in a market framework. Everything is a medium through which to create a product. Everything will be, at some point, made into an attempt to turn a profit.

[To anyone who thinks this sounds dystopian, you are living in the wrong civilisation. Try harder next time.]

short one.

I managed to receive a Pownce invite (thanks, Brian) and am currently playing around with it. Clean interface, everything has been easy, and works as well online as it does as a desktop client.

But, I need a wider network to really test it out. So, anyone who wants an invite, let me know. And anyone who takes one, add friends, people I might know if possible.

I have a feeling the features will become clearer if I widen my net.

observations on open source

When I first made my never-far-from-the-conversation switch to Apple, I decided I was going to put my actions up against my words, and use OpenOffice for all of my text editing needs. And, for a little while, it was tolerable. When a fellow user and friend switched back to microsoft Word, he did so because OpenOffice felt like 'a windows app that just happens to run on a mac.' I later corrected him that it was much more like a linux app that just happens to run on a mac, but you get his point.

I persevered. But, today, I reached my breaking point. The hassle of settings, of formatting, of doing pretty much anything other than entering text, was getting to me. Hell, the hassle of saving a set of changes, and then opening .doc files to find that they had reverted, got to me. Moreover, my friend was right. The interface was hideous, counter-intuitive, and didn't work well with anything in a .doc biased world.

Today I learned something very odd. Microsoft products can look appealing. Apparently only when they are coded for a Mac, though. Confusing. Still, I had to abandon my open source ideals, and for one simple reason; it doesn't work well enough.

It works, inarguably. I COULD, if forced, live with using only that one program. But, for me, open source isn't just about escaping the tyrrany of massive corporations, or harnessing the power of crowdsourcing. For me, open source is mostly about creating alternatives to fight the limitations intentionally imposed on users for corporate gain.

Today I learned that unintentional limitations and failings are worse, on an individual experience level. Worse because being unable to do what you are supposed to do will always be more glaring than being unable to do something the designer doesn't want you to do.

Still, using Word makes me feel dirty. Maybe I should switch to Pages...

hitting close to home.

I just received my new phone in the mail, and was fairly certain the handset was broken - i couldn't set any mp3 ringtones that i attempted to transfer via bluetooth.

But no, this is a common problem in Canada, for fido customers, apparently. They DRM locked my phone so that it will only play ringtones downloaded from the online WAP store, accessible only via the phone.

They also, just to piss me off, seem to have locked out the option that lets me connect to my home internet through the phone, via bluetooth.

Fido is doing a really good job at making me regret customer status.