I keep trying to get myself ready for the future, and I keep failing.
On the other hand things like this used to scare me to death, and now they only give me the screaming heebie-jeebies. So I guess that’s “progress”?
Or not?
My Thoughts Exactly
Existentialism is not easily definable.
It really isn’t. Try it.
P.J. Harvey is cool.
P.J. Harvey is cool.
Wetmachine Wants Music
Hi, it’s Gary, the guy who maintains the drunken machinery[1] here at Wetmachine.
John has asked me to install a Soundblox MP3 player on Wetmachine for your listening pleasure (don’t panic, it won’t start playing automatically, and it’s a lot better than those cheesy MIDI tunes of yesteryear).
But we need music to play!
We interrupt this program
For a brief commercial announcement.
My employer, Laszlo Systems, makes some cool XML-based technology for so-called rich internet applications that run in Flash players. For those of you who don’t have a current degree in marketing buzzspeak, I’ll explain that that means you use Laszlo’s stuff to write nifty interactive web apps that don’t require page refreshes, and that the language in which you write them doesn’t suck. See the little blogging widget to the right for a micro-example.
As of yesterday Laszlo has greatly liberalized its free-for-developers and free-for-noncomercial-use policies. If you do any web development you really should go get the download. It’s cool, and it’s free.
Steve Talbott: Technopoly's eloquent critic
I often describe myself as a technoparanoaic, or a technoskeptic, or a neoluddite, or whatever. I’ve used an excerpt from the Unabomber Manifesto as epigrams to my books, and I’ve called my Acts of the Apostles “Bill Joy’s Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us in convenient thriller format, with fewer pictures and more sex and car chases.” But although I might use a Kaczynski quotation in order to be provacative, and although I obsess on dystopian visions of the future, I really don’t have a consistent point of view.
To read somebody who does have a consistent point of view, see Netfuture:Technology and Human Responsibility, the occasional newsletter put out by Steve Talbott.
I don’t always agree with everything Steve says (although I usually agree with most of it), and once in a while his writing style gets a little floral for my taste. But he is a wise man and a thoughtful writer. I highly recommend him.
Orson Emergent: Subvocal speech
I realize what a boon this will be for people who have lost their ability to speak.
However, all I can think about is how the thought police are going to love it.
There's still hope — robots fail in the desert
Ever since watching the opening sequence of the first Terminator movie in 1984, in which autonomous battlebots relentlessly and remorselessly hunt down a pesky band of cockroach-like humans who refuse to be eradicated from what’s left of the Earth, the mad scientists at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration have been racing to beat the movie’s date of 2029 for the ultimate man-machine showdown.
Perpaps starting to panic a little–with only 24 years to go, no credible unstoppable AI-driven land-based deathmachines on the horizon and a whole world to destroy–the Military-Industrial Complex (MIC) challenged itself to “think outside the box(sm)” and so opened up the competitionto universities, entrepeneurs and even people who have no known connection to Haliblurton, Lockheed or Raytheon.
Sausage Factory: a partial index to date
Here’s a nearly complete list of Harold Feld’s “Tales of the Sausage Factory” articles here on Wetmachine. Real Soon Now I’m going to get organized and use the blog software to keep track of this stuff so I don’t have to manualy copy and paste to generate lists like this. . .
On the Nader copyright case
Justin/Janet part 2
Justin/Janet part 1
The ICANN Train Wreck
Unlicensed Spectrum Access
Why Disney/Comcast Merger Sucks Rocks
On RFID
CBS Caves Again for Bush
Yet more on Fileswapping
Fileswapping — whither to in ’04
ABA article:“More than a Toaster with Pictures”
On making the Wall Street Journal’s Shit List
Golden Globes, Former Presidents, Media Ownership”
ORSON, the Overmind
Watch it grow.
(ORSON –Obedient Remote Servo-Organic Network. Read “Acts of the Apostles” for chilling details of its origin, true nature and ring-of-power-like destiny!!!)
-
Existentialism is not easily definable.
It really isn’t. Try it.
P.J. Harvey is cool.
P.J. Harvey is cool.
Wetmachine Wants Music
Hi, it’s Gary, the guy who maintains the drunken machinery[1] here at Wetmachine.
John has asked me to install a Soundblox MP3 player on Wetmachine for your listening pleasure (don’t panic, it won’t start playing automatically, and it’s a lot better than those cheesy MIDI tunes of yesteryear).
But we need music to play!
We interrupt this program
For a brief commercial announcement.
My employer, Laszlo Systems, makes some cool XML-based technology for so-called rich internet applications that run in Flash players. For those of you who don’t have a current degree in marketing buzzspeak, I’ll explain that that means you use Laszlo’s stuff to write nifty interactive web apps that don’t require page refreshes, and that the language in which you write them doesn’t suck. See the little blogging widget to the right for a micro-example.
As of yesterday Laszlo has greatly liberalized its free-for-developers and free-for-noncomercial-use policies. If you do any web development you really should go get the download. It’s cool, and it’s free.
Steve Talbott: Technopoly's eloquent critic
I often describe myself as a technoparanoaic, or a technoskeptic, or a neoluddite, or whatever. I’ve used an excerpt from the Unabomber Manifesto as epigrams to my books, and I’ve called my Acts of the Apostles “Bill Joy’s Why the Future Doesn’t Need Us in convenient thriller format, with fewer pictures and more sex and car chases.” But although I might use a Kaczynski quotation in order to be provacative, and although I obsess on dystopian visions of the future, I really don’t have a consistent point of view.
To read somebody who does have a consistent point of view, see Netfuture:Technology and Human Responsibility, the occasional newsletter put out by Steve Talbott.
I don’t always agree with everything Steve says (although I usually agree with most of it), and once in a while his writing style gets a little floral for my taste. But he is a wise man and a thoughtful writer. I highly recommend him.
Orson Emergent: Subvocal speech
I realize what a boon this will be for people who have lost their ability to speak.
However, all I can think about is how the thought police are going to love it.
There's still hope — robots fail in the desert
Ever since watching the opening sequence of the first Terminator movie in 1984, in which autonomous battlebots relentlessly and remorselessly hunt down a pesky band of cockroach-like humans who refuse to be eradicated from what’s left of the Earth, the mad scientists at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Administration have been racing to beat the movie’s date of 2029 for the ultimate man-machine showdown.
Perpaps starting to panic a little–with only 24 years to go, no credible unstoppable AI-driven land-based deathmachines on the horizon and a whole world to destroy–the Military-Industrial Complex (MIC) challenged itself to “think outside the box(sm)” and so opened up the competitionto universities, entrepeneurs and even people who have no known connection to Haliblurton, Lockheed or Raytheon.
Sausage Factory: a partial index to date
Here’s a nearly complete list of Harold Feld’s “Tales of the Sausage Factory” articles here on Wetmachine. Real Soon Now I’m going to get organized and use the blog software to keep track of this stuff so I don’t have to manualy copy and paste to generate lists like this. . .
On the Nader copyright case
Justin/Janet part 2
Justin/Janet part 1
The ICANN Train Wreck
Unlicensed Spectrum Access
Why Disney/Comcast Merger Sucks Rocks
On RFID
CBS Caves Again for Bush
Yet more on Fileswapping
Fileswapping — whither to in ’04
ABA article:“More than a Toaster with Pictures”
On making the Wall Street Journal’s Shit List
Golden Globes, Former Presidents, Media Ownership”
ORSON, the Overmind
Watch it grow.
(ORSON –Obedient Remote Servo-Organic Network. Read “Acts of the Apostles” for chilling details of its origin, true nature and ring-of-power-like destiny!!!)