Author Archives: Karl

On the China – Google row

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It’s a moment that those into cyberpunk have been looking for, for a long time – when a multinational corporation whose bread and butter is in cyberspace itself confronts a nation-state. When Google posted to their blog “A New Approach To China” it was historic for many reasons: it was an *Internet company* confronting a *country* over *hacking* (try and digest that for a moment), the first most of us heard about this was from Google’s blog post, and it highlights issues of having to do with intellectual property, with free speech, and access to information.

Wow.

You can go on and on with questions, thoughts, concerns, and as usual there is a terrific Metafilter: Metafilte thread to check out.

Related:

NYTimes: Scaling the Digital Wall in China : “The Great Firewall of China is hardly impregnable.”

Bruce Sterling – “Today’s bleeding-edge technology is tomorrow’s broken legacy system.”

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I started to pull together some choice quotes from Bruce Sterling, answering questions about the “State of the World 2010” at the WELL, but realized I’d be quoting far too much. You are better off reading the whole thing yourself. Enjoy.

Okay, one quote! In this he is discussing network-culture:

It’s not that print’s a medium, and the web’s a medium, and you get to migrate between media. The Web is a metamedium that turns everything it grips into network-culture.

*So it’s easy to see that mags are in for it. What’s a little harder is looking at the hollow shell of your once-favorite antique shop and realizing that’s all about eBay. “Gee, I’m on the web all the time now… time for a stroll, it’s a sunny day… Gosh, my neighborhood’s full of spooky holes.” Gothic High-Tech.

Update: Wired: Katie Hafner The Epic Saga of The Well

On Why It’s So Hard To Change, With Tips On How

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Rebecca Skloot in Oprah Magazine: Why Is It So Damn Hard to Change?:

…instead of waking up New Year’s morning and saying, “I’m going to do X now,” then berating yourself a month later when that resolution didn’t work, remember: You’re doing nothing less than rewiring your brain. Approach change as if you’re learning a new language or a new instrument. Obviously, you’re not going to be fluent or play symphonies instantly; you’ll need constant focus and practice. Overcoming an unhealthy habit involves changing the behaviors associated with it and managing stress, because stressing about change (or anything else) will knock you off the wagon faster than you realize. Above all, get that dopamine system going: Find rewards–make them instant, and don’t be stingy. Your brain needs them. And I promise (well, Volkow, Schlund, Wexler, and Fleshner promise) it gets easier. That’s not a bunch of self-help nonsense. It’s biology.

Mike Newall in Metropolis covers the state of Frankford, NE Philadelphia

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We moved around Philadelphia a lot growing up but I ended up back in Frankford in my 20s which leads it to have a special place in my bones. Mike Newall, for the new online publication “Metropolis”, has written a must read series on the challenges taking place there in “The Frankford Story”.

Two obits at NPR: one worthy, one not

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NPR: In Memoriam: Sweet, Sad Rocker Vic Chesnutt

NPR: The Man Is Gone, But Long Live The Blogosphere (via Garret Vreeland). Jeff Jarvis knows blogging as well as anybody, but NPR should have talked to people who knew Brad Graham, or, as Garret suggests, were at least among his contemporaries in that first wave of blogging. He offered way more than the word ‘blogosphere’ to the history of blogging and way more to the world other than blogging. Check out this related Metafilter thread.